Fire Heart
by roguefire28
Summary: A mysterious girl, a rising body count, and when a curse is revealed only the strong will survive . . . .
1. Chapters 1 and 2

**1**

She had been born in fire. The event seemed a signal to her destiny but those around her had no way of knowing. Her mother had birthed her in the flames of their burning house, desperately trying to bring life into the world on the brink of death. Her father had told her that the firefighters had carried her out to him but had been unable to save her mother. They buried her three days after her birth and nobody took notice of the birthmark on the child's right hip, mysteriously branded into her skin in the shape of a flame. Fire had been with her all her life; she lived her life walking through the flames in a way that nobody else could.

She had lived a life akin to the flames with which she so associated. Burning, passionate, alive. She had been an incredibly proactive girl, throwing herself into every available new experience that had come her way. She had carried her gymnastics training nearly all the way to the Olympics at the age of seventeen, but had decided that international competition wasn't for her. She did it simply to know that she could. A medal wasn't going to tell her that she had achieved her goal. She knew in her heart that she had. She danced competitively with the same passion, throwing her entire soul into each movement, leaving her partner with difficulty keeping up. That, too, had faded when she realized that there were greater things to be achieved. She ran the gamut of activities and felt honestly she could say that she had nearly tried everything in such a short amount of time. She had gained confidence and a sense of honor from the tender age of five until she had reached the age of twenty five through years of specialized martial arts training that her father had paid for her to take just to prove that she could. Eventually she had grown so fond of the activity, of how it continually demanded more of her, and never let her achieve her highest goals that she had refused to put it aside. She hadn't settled with simple Tae Kwon Do or Karate although she had learned those as well. She had demanded more of herself and hired a private instructor to teach her Aikido and then moving on to further challenge herself by learning Ninjutsu. Her life had been full and dedicated to exploring every avenue of what she could become.

Because what she was became another thing entirely.

Dean Winchester sat at the bar while his brother, Sam, shifted uncomfortably in the seat next to him. They had come to Texas when a rash of deaths had sprung up in the normally peaceful Hill Country. Each victim had died a different death and there was no connection between the names or ages. So far the total numbered seven but there seemed to be no indication that the deaths would cease any time soon. Sam had his head buried in the paperwork he had gathered so far, autopsy reports and police reports illegally obtained with their numerous fake badges and identities. The music in the back room of a small town sports bar was exceptionally loud and the smoke in the room created a haze over everything. Sam repeated blinked his eyes, trying to ward off the irritation with little success.

"Dean," he said loudly, grabbing his brother's arm to get his attention over the music and women. "Dean!"

Dean turned to him with a perturbed expression on his face. Unlike Sam, who found their job the only thing that mattered most of the time and had little time left over for play, Dean saw traveling the country as an excuse to meet many local girls. The number of names in his cell phone was astounding and Sam often wondered how he remembered each of the girls they belonged to. It was yet another mystery about his older brother that he had little desire to solve.

"What?" Dean demanded, gesturing to the side of the room where a young woman with black hair was dancing to the heavy beat of the music. "You're ruining a good show, man!"

Sam rolled his eyes and jerked his brother closer. "Dean, we're not getting anywhere with this. We've followed every lead possible and it's just more dead ends. We need to figure out a plan."

Dean cast Sam an easy grin and Sam nearly covered his ears, knowing the speech that followed that patent expression. "Sammy, you just need to relax. Look around you! Have some fun and get your head out of body parts on paper."

He could think of little else to do other than roll his eyes again. He gave up trying to catch Dean's undivided attention and went back to rereading the paperwork for what seemed like the zillionth time.

Dean watched the black haired woman dance and drank his beer while his gaze roamed over the crowd. He knew that Sammy was right. They had gotten nowhere with this job. He couldn't make sense of it. Each victim had died in a different way and their bodies had been found in different places. There had been no trace of sulphur at any of the places or any other kind of supernatural residue that indicated it was their kind of job. But at the same time there had been no human traces either. No unlocked or broken doors, fingerprints, footprints, nothing. The police were just as stumped as they were. Dean sighed and his gaze settled on a young woman sitting in the back corner of the room. Her eyes were roaming the crowd the same as he had been but she seemed to be studying and memorizing everything she saw. As if she was searching for something, or someone. Her eyes met his from across the room and she studied him intently.

Dean returned the attention and studied her as well. She was beautiful. Even from the distance he could make out the color of her eyes, a bluish gray. Her hair was light blonde and fell in wavy curls around her face and down her shoulders. She had a small frame that could only be described as petite, but her bearing warned anyone from thinking that she was frail in the least. She couldn't have been over 5'3" and looked like she weighed all of 120 lbs. Her skin was tanned as if she spent much of her time in the sun and her lips were full. She was the kind of girl that Dean would normally be trying to bait her number from but something told him that would be a harder task than it usually was. Maybe it was the set of her expression, the way those constantly observing eyes took in everything and seemed to look right through you. It could have been the way she held herself, how it suggested that there was much more to her than just a pretty face and great body. Dean watched her finish the last of her drink and stand up, moving through the haze and crowd. He blinked his eyes because it appeared that she moved so quickly as to shift through the stands of people without being noticed. Dean grabbed his brother's arm and hauled him to his feet.

"Come on Sammy," he said.

"Dean!" Sam cried. "My stuff! Where the hell are we going?"

Dean ignored his brother and dragged him through the crowd. When he reached the exit he could see the blonde moving down the stairs to the first floor of the building and out the door. He pulled Sam faster and by the time they reached the doorway a black motorcycle was already pulling from its parking place. The girl rode off down the street with a roar and Dean cursed.

"Dean," Sam said. "What was that about?"

Dean shook his head. "I don't know."

**2**

Her name was Kya Winters. She put her head down against the wind and guided the motorcycle toward the Guadalupe River. The river spanned the length of much of the Hill Country, finding its home in several of the cities. She thought back to the handsome man at the bar. He had been quite good looking and could probably entice flocks of girls to his side if given a mind to. But there had been something in his face that had caught her attention. For a man so young his face should have been carefree and happy, instead it was worn and rugged. She got the feeling he spent much of his time outside of the white picket fence scenario. His eyes had told her a story of pain, loss, tragedy and a deeply imbedded determination. His whole bearing had spoken in volumes for him; he had seen much more in the world than he offered out loud. She wondered who he was and what had him in such pain all the time.

She parked the motorcycle in the gravel that lined the river and slid off, removing her helmet and shaking out her curly blonde locks. She walked closer to the water's edge and sat down, pulling her knees to her chin and resting her head on them. The water lapped quietly at the stone walls that held it in and the moon hung far overhead beyond her reach. If she could have touched it she surely would have tried.

There were times when she blamed herself for her mother's death. Her father had never remarried after her death so devoted to his wife he had been. When she looked at pictures of her mother she knew that she was a reflection of the beauty she had been. Sometimes it pained her father to look at her but Kya didn't take it to offense. She was close to her father and he had done everything in his power to give her the world as her oyster. She wasn't spoiled in any sense of the word. He had wanted her to experience life to its fullest and she had wanted to live a life that would make up for the one her mother had lost. If she was looking down on her daughter Kya wanted to be able to show her mother everything she had accomplished. Her father always told her that her mother would be proud of the woman she had become and she hoped with all her heart that he was right.

The only other family member she had been close to had been her little cousin Elizabeth. She had taken the girl in as the sibling she would never have and the two had grown up together with their respective parents making it possible to see each other every time it was convenient. Kya had come back to Texas when she had received word that the studious and shy Elizabeth had been murdered in her bedroom.

Using her good looks and flirtation skills alone she had gotten a hold of the police report for her cousin's death from a young and inexperienced rookie police officer. The report had left her even more confused. There had been no entry point for a killer, no trace left behind, no struggle, no clue as to what had really happened to Elizabeth. Kya had decided to stick around and see this through in a way that the police officers wouldn't think to look. She had seen plenty in her life and that included some of the things that lurked in the shadows of the night. She was never afraid. She had traveled the globe with her father and seen the different cultures of people and the legends that went with them. Some of them she had even encountered herself. And it was no secret between her or her father that she was something special all by herself.

Despite her being different from all of the other kids her father had never treated her like a freak as some other people around her had. He had loved her despite the gift that set her apart and even encouraged her to learn to use it to the best of her ability. Her power was dangerous without control as attested to the several fire department reports from her childhood.

Kya Winters was a firestarter.

Ever since childhood she had the ability to start fires with her mind and it had been the bane of some of her father's more important valuables. Her innate gift had eventually led her to explore its origin, which had led her down the path of the supernatural. Her search had yielded no major clues and she had eventually just accepted that it was part of who she was. The ability had come in handy several times when she needed it, including a time in Japan with an angry spirit. She hadn't had time to pour gasoline on the bones to rid the populace of it and instead lit them on fire all by herself. She didn't make a living by chasing down the supernatural, she just took care of it if she ran across it. Mostly she let things in the night alone and to their own devices. As long as they left her alone she was fine leaving them in peace as well.

Until now.

She knew that Elizabeth's death had something to do with the supernatural, she just hadn't been able to find the connection yet. She knew that if she stuck with it long enough there would eventually be a breakthrough and answers would yield themselves. She didn't know how she was going to stop more deaths from occurring but she was going to try. And she would give Elizabeth peace by finding out what had killed her.

Dean lay on his bed in the motel room while Sam slept soundly in the bed next to his. He couldn't get the girl from the bar out of his head. There was something about her, something that he couldn't put his finger on. Aside from the obvious fact that she was drop dead gorgeous there had been something about the way she moved that had sent alarm bells off in his head. He couldn't help but feel like she was tied to their current job in some way. It seemed a long shot; meeting a tie to the case from across a bar but weirder things had happened to him. And he still couldn't prove that she was even connected until he had more information on her.

It was just a gut feeling. And Dean Winchester had learned to trust his gut a long time ago with the work that he did. Logic and reasoning usually had no place in the world of spirits and demons. One could follow the clues and find the story with the logic of a scientist, as Sam did, but after that it was a leap off a cliff to find the solution. There were just some things in the shadows that didn't have an easy solution.

Dean sighed and sat up, running his hands through his hair. It was now close to three in the morning, the time of the devil according to some legends. It was the hour in the night in which most demons gained the most power to come out and wreak havoc. The legend followed the logic that it was a demonic joke on heaven. Christ had supposedly died on the cross at three in the afternoon and as a spit in the face to the savior the demons made three in the morning their playtime. Dean wasn't sure if the legend was true but he also wasn't sure that he wanted to find out. There had been so much going on in their lives recently Dean found himself wanting a bit of peace. He was beginning to understand why Sammy dreamed so much of a normal life with a family and white picket fence, not that he would ever admit it to his baby brother. Dean was supposed to live up to his title as the gung-ho warrior who loved his job and everything it entailed. He didn't want to ruin that image and make himself the daydreaming softie.

Dean lay back down and closed his eyes. They had to find a lead tomorrow before the trail got too cold to follow. He needed sleep for a clear mind. Even so, it was another two hours before sleep found him.


	2. Chapter 3

**3**

Dean pulled out the chair across from where Sammy was diligently taking notes from an old, leather bound book. He knew he hadn't gotten enough sleep to be up playing detective but such was his life. He sighed and looked around him at the many people surfing the internet or reading studiously at various tables.

"Sammy," he whispered. "I don't see how this is going to help."

Sam looked up at his brother and his pen paused over the paper. "We don't have any other leads to follow."

"I know that," Dean told him. "But I don't see how guessing at the killer in a bunch of old books is going to help us."

Sam glared at him. "It's better than what we've got, which is nothing."

Dean leaned back and held up his hands in a defeated pose. Sam went back to scribbling notes on possible suspects for the killings while Dean stood up and stretched. Sam was right again and he knew it. He was beginning to get frustrated with this job, with the overwhelming lack of information. Another person could die anytime now and all they had was conjecture.

He went to the desk where a middle aged woman was sitting at a computer, entering new arrivals into the computer. She looked up when he approached and put on her best helpful smile, which he took to really say "Why the hell are you interrupting me?".

"Excuse me, ma'am," he said in his best good boy voice. "I was just wondering if you could tell me if any other weird stuff has happened around here, other than the murders everyone has been talking about. See, my brother and I were looking for a place to settle our father in, but with all this . . . .," he trailed off, letting the implication hang.

She shifted her glasses on the bridge of her nose and her face instantly became more open and willing to talk. When everything else failed, Dean knew he could always count on his charm and small town hospitality.

"Those murders," she murmured. "How awful . . . .But no, nothing else strange has happened in our little town. We lost one of our own to those nightmarish killings."

"One of your own?" Dean echoed, leaning against the desk.

"Young girl by the name of Elizabeth Elson. She worked here during the summers most all her adolescent life. The girl loved books more than she could tolerate people. The only other person besides her parents that I ever saw her keep company with was her cousin."

Dean arched an eyebrow. "Her cousin?"

The librarian nodded. "Pretty blonde girl. She came into town a few days ago to attend the funeral and never left. She's sitting right over there," the woman pointed her finger upstairs to a table nearly hidden by the banister railing.

Dean turned to follow the direction and found himself looking at the girl from the bar. Her head was bent low over a book and her face covered by a curtain of blonde curly locks. As he watched she picked up her cell phone and a confused expression came over her face quickly followed by one of surprise and concern. Dean could tell that whoever the caller was it was a phone call she hadn't been expecting. He thanked the librarian and went back to his table to get Sam.

Kya was getting nowhere. She had followed up on any possible leads and came up empty handed. Her research into possible suspects had come up equally fruitless. She was about ready to pack it in and go back to her motel room when her cell phone buzzed on the table. She had set it on vibrate and now it moved an inch to the right with the vibrations. She reached out a hand and flipped it open without bothering to check the Caller ID.

"Hello?" she asked quietly.

"Ms. Winters," a male voice said. "If you want answers concerning your cousin I suggest you meet me at the bridge."

Kya sat up straight. "Who is this?"

"That's not important right now. The bridge. Half an hour."

The caller hung up leaving her to sit and stare at her phone in concern. She knew the bridge the caller had been talking about; she had been there the other night lost in contemplation. It occurred to her that she could be walking into a trap but she couldn't figure out who would lay one out for her. Even if it was a trap she couldn't pass by the chance for answers of any kind.

She gathered up her things in the worn black leather satchel she wore over her shoulder and hurried down the stairs to her bike outside.

Dean pulled the Impala onto the gravel at a distance that wouldn't warrant overdue attention from the two people they were spying on. Beside him Sam leaned back and stared out the window.

"Why are we following the bar girl, Dean?"

"I don't know. I can't shake this feeling that she's involved in this."

"Or you can't shake the fact that you want her number."

Dean smiled and didn't deny the accusation. He knew that his gut was right but he had to prove it to his ever logical brother before Sam would give him credit where it was due. The fact that the blonde was a total hottie didn't help Dean's case at all. He knew the line of thinking that Sam was following.

"We can't even hear what they're saying," Sam objected.

"I know that. But I can read expressions as well as the next person and when they're done I'm going to go talk to her."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Just get her number so we can get back to work."

Dean sighed and didn't reply.

Kya stood near the bridge at the bank of the river and wrapped her arms tight around her middle to ward off a sudden chill. The wind was strong today and seemed to diminish the sun's warmth as it beamed down. Her hair whipped across her face and she suddenly wished she had worn a jacket.

"I'm glad you came," a voice said, causing Kya to jump.

She turned around and met the speaker, an older man in what looked like his fifties. He was tall and broad as though he had been farming most of his life and his face was sun worn and creased with his age. His eyes, deep set into his face, studied her intently with dark brown orbs that bordered on black. His hair was a shock of silver that indicated his age more than anything else.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"I was a family friend of your Aunt and Uncle. Little Elizabeth grew up on the farm next to ours. She would come over nearly everyday to ride our horses," the man said, his eyes misty with the memory.

Kya swallowed. Her instincts were on edge, sharper than ever, as she studied the man and his every movement. "That still doesn't tell me who you are."

The man offered his hand to her. "Jeremiah Dawkins."

She took the hand warily and dropped her own back to her side. "You said you knew something about Lizzie's death. Tell me what you know."

"Impatient young people," he muttered. "Your cousin got caught up in something deeper than she realized with that love of books that she had. And if you follow the same course then you'll soon join her on the other side."

Kya smiled at the mention of her cousin's love for books for she remembered that well but her smile quickly faded at Jeremiah's dire warning. Her eyes narrowed and she clutched at the black satchel she wore around her shoulder.

"Tell me what you mean, please," she said sharply. "I don't have time for games."

Jeremiah sighed deeply and stared out over the water as if it would show him a doorway into a distant past. "When I was a kid, barely nineteen, a bunch of murders happened around here. Nobody talks about it no more, they were horrible. The police, they arrested a man by the name of Colton Banks. He was charged with the murders but most of the folk around here was pretty sure of his innocence. We were all convinced that it had been his brother, Jason. But there was no proof and the police had to quiet the townspeople before they got too riled up over the killings. So they charged Colton and had him put to death."

Kya stared at him. "That sounds horrible but I don't see what it has to do with Lizzie."

"Some say that Colton practiced magic. That he had a hand dipped in the occult. Some even say that he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for success. You see, Colton was a writer. Seemingly overnight his books began to sell quickly and he became famous for his writin. His brother, on the other hand, was a convicted criminal. Before he moved here he had been charged with assault, robbery, and probably a hundred other things that I don't even want to guess at. Before he died, Colton swore revenge on the people that had abandoned him. I'm guessing that would be the whole damn town. We all let him die."

Kya shook her head and brushed her hair back with her hand. "So you think it's a ghost?"

"By golly no, missy. Colton was working on a piece of horror fiction when he was convicted. I heard tell that the guards in the prison heard him chanting over the book late at night. After his death the guards had the book made into one copy and put it up on display at the local museum. I guess to some people Colton Banks became our own little local horror story, but eventually that died down. The book sat there for some time, until just recently I believe it went missing. If all the talk is true, I think that book has something to do with all of these deaths."

Kya's brow furrowed. "A book? What harm could a book do?"

"I don't know. It's the only clue I've got to tell you. I figured if anybody could solve this, it would be you."

"Why me? Why are you coming to me with all of this?"

Jeremiah sighed and his eyes got misty again. "Elizabeth, she looked up to you. She used to say that you could do anything. She said you were special. When I saw you at the funeral I could see that she was right. It wasn't just hero-worship talk from an envious girl. I can't put my finger on it but there's something about you, Kya, that tells me you were the one to come to. 'Sides, the police would just call me an old nut."

Kya laughed. "Most likely."

Jeremiah eyed her. "Be careful, girl. Too many people have died already. No matter what's behind it, just be careful."

She nodded and shook his hand again before grabbing up her helmet. "I'll figure it out."

Jeremiah watched her slide onto the sleek black motorcycle and crank it up. As she rode off and out of sight he watched the black car pull off and follow her at a safe distance. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair.


	3. Chapters 4 and 5

**4**

Kya pulled up at the diner, hunger guiding her motions, and she stepped off the bike, carrying her helmet under one arm. She slid into an unoccupied booth and waited for the waitress to notice her arrival.

Her thoughts churned over the meeting with Jeremiah. She sighed deeply, wondering how she had gotten herself into this so deep. Her gaze turned out the window to a black Chevy Impala parked outside and a silent alarm went off in the back of her head. She had seen that car before she just couldn't remember where. The door to the diner opened and a pair of young men walked in.

Kya's breath caught in her throat as they turned purposefully in her direction. One of them was the man from the bar the other night. He was even better looking in broad daylight and the man next to him wasn't so bad either. They were both tall, although the one she didn't recognize was taller than the one she did. They were both broad-chested and muscled well, as though they spent their spare time in a gym. The one she recognized had the same confident swagger to his walk, short blondish brown hair, the same devil may care grin, the same chiseled face and gorgeous green eyes tinted with gold flecks. The one she didn't had kind dark brown eyes that masked a hidden pain and intensity, longer chocolate brown hair, a narrower nose, and the same chiseled jaw as his companion. They walked up to her table without hesitating and she had to stop herself from jumping up and running out the door. With all that she had just learned she was on edge and jumpy. Her world was fast taking a turn for the funland of the weird and the wacky, and she was about to jump off the bandwagon.

"Dean Winchester," the shorter one said, before jabbing a thumb at his companion. "My brother Sam. Can we sit?"

"Do you have a reason to?" she countered.

That set the one called Dean back on his heels a bit. His expression changed to one of surprise and Kya got the feeling he wasn't used to girls telling him no. She hid a smile. The one he called Sam appeared embarrassed and uneasy to be intruding like they were and he had trouble looking her in the eyes.

"I saw you the other night," Dean said. "I wanted to talk to you, but you ran off."

"Does that line usually work?" she asked.

"Well, no," he admitted. "Usually I just ask for a number and it's magic."

Kya found herself smiling. He was charming, all right, and she knew that made him all the more dangerous. She motioned for them to sit before they drew anymore attention, curiosity getting the best of her better judgment. They eased into the booth together and the waitress came over, taking their orders and walking away with a shy grin at Dean's wink.

"No more games," Kya said when she had gone. She leaned across the table and her hair fell forward. "I want to know why you're following me."

Dean leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. "I still haven't gotten your name, not to mention your number."

Kya scowled at him. "And you're not going to until I have a reason to trust you. Which I don't. So start talking."

"Your cousin was one of the people killed around here recently, right?" Sam asked quietly.

"Yeah, Elizabeth," she affirmed. "But how do you know that and why do you care?"

"We don't think . . . .uhh . . .well, that is to say . . .," Sam started. He cleared his throat and started staring at the Formica table top with interest.

Kya arched an eyebrow impatiently. "Spill it. I don't care how crazy it sounds."

"We don't think that the murders were your garden variety killings," Dean supplied smoothly, getting a glare from his brother.

"When you can define garden variety killings is when I'll start thinking about giving you my name," she said.

"As in, we don't think that a person did all this," Sam said quickly.

Kya sat back. There was more to these two than they were letting on, but she didn't get the feeling they were purposely trying to hide anything from her. It seemed to her that Sam was more embarrassed and nervous than anything else and Dean was just to into the ladies. Sam rubbed his thumb at the table, trying to clean off a mark that wasn't there while his brother eyed the waitress from across the diner.

"If not a person than what did?" she demanded in a low voice.

"We don't know," Dean said, turning his attention back to the table. "That's what we're trying to figure out."

"Your cousin, there wasn't anything strange about her death was there?" Sam asked.

"You mean besides the fact that she died in her bedroom where all the doors and windows were inaccessible to an intruder and there was no trace of one anyway?" she asked sarcastically.

"How do you know all that?" Dean asked.

"I got a hold of the police report," she admitted.

"Did it say anything else?" Sam asked, his interest caught. "That was the only one I couldn't get."

"You have all of the police reports? Who are you two? What do you care what happens in a small town like this?" she demanded, still keeping her voice low.

"It's, uh, kind of our job," Dean said.

Kya sat back as the waitress brought their food and drinks and once again waited patiently while Dean flirted and Sam stared at his soda blankly. The waitress wandered off with another grin on her face and Kya thought seriously about slapping her impromptu companion.

"You were saying something about how prying into murders is your job," she prompted after a moment.

"Not murders exactly," Sam corrected, chewing on a French fry. "Just unusual murders."

Kya sighed. "Okay you two are not being straight with me. So I have no reason to be straight with you."

Dean swallowed the mouthful of hamburger that he had been chewing and regarded her warily. She returned the gaze and they sat there for a moment, sizing each other up.

"We travel a lot," he said finally. "And everywhere we go we hunt down things that other people don't."

"Dean!" Sam objected.

"Like ghosts and demons," she supplied.

One eyebrow rose. "Now you're not being straight."

"I wasn't the one that came up here uninvited," she reminded him.

"Right," he said. "Yes. Those kinds of things."

She nodded. "And you think something supernatural killed my cousin and all those other people."

Sam looked at his brother in surprise and Dean shrugged as if to tell him that spilling their secret had been the only way to break the communication ice barrier. Kya watched the silent exchange and found herself wishing once again that she hadn't been an only child. She had always wanted a sibling to be close to and she could tell just by watching them that these two brothers were very close.

Sam finally returned his attention to her and nodded. "Yeah," he said. "That's about the gist of it."

"Good," she said absently. "Glad I'm not the only nut around here."

Dean looked up from his plate in obvious surprise. "What?"

"I think the same thing. I've thought so from the beginning, right after I read the file."

"How do you know about things that go bump in the night?"

"I'm blonde but I'm not an idiot," she said. "I have reasons to know. That's all you need to know for now. And my name is Kya Winters." She looked sharply at Dean with the hint of a smile playing at the edges of her lips. "But you're not getting my number."

Dean sighed and turned his attention back to the waitress.

**5**

Dean pulled the Impala into the parking lot of the small museum, showcasing the history of the town, beside Kya's motorcycle. She climbed off and shook out her curly blonde locks before setting the helmet on the back of the bike. Dean shut his door and walked around the side of the car to stand next to her. Sam joined them from the other side and together they walked up to the entrance and into the front door.

"We should split up," Sam suggested. "We might get more answers if we don't gang up on people."

Kya nodded. "Yeah, we've got the Mod Squad going on here. Sam is right, we don't want to be intimidating."

She had taken the time to share the information that Jeremiah had given her, figuring that it couldn't hurt to have allies in her search for the truth. At first Dean had objected to her tagging along but she had pointedly reminded him that they had intruded on her search, not the other way around. She would continue looking for the answers with or without their assistance. She separated herself from the two men and walked around a winding corridor that displayed a hallway filled with important figureheads throughout the history of the city. Kya walked faster when she got the creeps from the many pairs of eyes staring at her.

Dean walked straight up to a young brown haired girl with an unofficial looking uniform. Her name tag read "Volunteer: Megan" and she looked as though she were a high school student looking to fill in lonely summer hours. So, off limits, he told himself as he caught her attention.

"Excuse me," he said with a charming smile.

The young girl turned and her eyes met the floor with astonishing speed when she caught sight of the man addressing her. A slow blush crept up her cheeks and Dean knew that she wasn't used to guys even looking at her much less speaking actual words to her. She appeared the studious, dedicated, learned type that spent much of her spare time reading books and getting lost in alternate worlds of daydreaming.

"Can I help you?" she asked quietly.

"Well, let's hope so," he said. "I heard of this book that an inmate wrote, I'm not sure what it's called but I heard that it was here and I wanted to see it."

She looked up at his words and her eyes lit up as she realized she had the information that he needed. "The book written by Colton Banks?"

"Yeah, that rings a bell," he replied.

"It's called Abi In Malam Rem," she said with a smile. "Roughly translated from Latin it means 'go to the devil'. He wrote it when he was imprisoned but never finished it. From what I've heard it was a horror fiction, which is unusual because his genre usually followed science-fiction and fantasy."

"You haven't read it?" he asked curiously.

"None of us here have," she said. "That book hasn't been touched since it was encased in glass after he died. People say it gives them the creeps. But it went missing a few weeks ago. Somebody broke into the museum and shattered the casing."

"They didn't catch who did it?"

"No," she said earnestly. "Some of us think it was an inside job but others thing it was just a bunch of kids playing a prank. The book hasn't resurfaced yet. If you ask me, the farther away that thing gets the better. It's a creepy old thing."

Dean thanked her and spent a few more minutes chatting before meeting up with Sam near a wall at the back of the museum. Sam shifted anxiously from foot to foot as his brother approached.

"I think we found our culprit," Sam said.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say you found out the same stuff I did."

"Dead writer, cursed book, big body count?"

"That sounds about right," Dean answered. "Why can't we just deal with the Marshmallow Man for a change?"

Sam ignored the rhetorical question. "So we have to find this book and figure out how it's killing people."

Dean nodded. "Way to come up with a plan, Sammy. I would have never thought of that myself."

Sam cast his brother a scowl and Dean laughed. "What I'm wondering is if it's a good idea to bring Kya along," Sam said after a moment.

"We don't have a choice," Dean answered. "Like the girl said, we intruded on her hunt. We can't push her off now because she'll just find another way to get involved again."

"I want to know what she's hiding."

"Don't we all want to know what women are hiding," Dean said with a chuckle. "But she'll tell us sooner or later, when she thinks she can trust us."

Sam sighed. "Yeah, I suppose."

Dean looked over as Kya walked up on them. Her expression told him that she had found out the same line of information that they had. She read their faces as well and came quickly to the same conclusion.

"So it's the book," she said, more to fill the silence than state the obvious.

"Looks that way," Dean agreed. "We have to find the damn thing before we can do anything about it."

Kya nodded. She walked back to the front of the museum with the brothers in tow before pushing out the entrance doors. The sunlight caught her hair and lit it up with streaks of gold set in the blonde, making it appear as if it were on fire. She turned back to the boys before donning her helmet.

"I have to go back to my room to change," she told them. "I'll call you when I'm ready to meet up again."

Dean nodded and watched her drive off again. He cast Sam a sidelong glance before starting his own engine up.

"We're in trouble now, brother," he said dryly.

Sam sighed and looked in the direction that Kya had gone. "You can say that again."

"We're in trouble—," Dean started but Sam cut him off with a look.

"Dean," he said tiredly. "Don't."

The earpiece in Kya's ear beeped softly as she was alerted to an incoming call. The sun was bright today, beating down on her leather jacket and causing it to warm up to what should have been an uncomfortable degree. There was a slight breeze coming down from the surrounding hills that did little to wipe away the humidity in the summer air.

"Hello?" she asked, pushing the button on the cell phone belted onto her hip to answer the call.

Jeremiah Dawkin's voice came over the speaker in her ear. "Kya," he said. "I'm sure you know by now that it's the book."

"Yeah," she answered, steering the bike into the right turning lane. "We found that out for sure about five minutes ago."

"I have a suspicion as to who might have stolen the book," he said seriously. "Colton Banks had a son."

"You think his kid stole it for revenge on his father?"

"It's possible that Hunter Banks knows what that book can do."

Kya sighed. "How old is this kid?"

"He should be about 29 now."

"Even if he did steal the book it's doubtful that he still has it," she told him. "The book has to circulate in order to claim victims."

"Yes," Jeremiah agreed. "But you might look to Hunter for answers on how the book works. Or where he sent it too, if it was him, and where it might have ended up."

She found herself nodding even though he couldn't see her. "I still want to know why you're helping out so much."

"I want the deaths to stop as much as you do. I want to know what killed Elizabeth and stop it. My bones are too old to do the heavy lifting, but my head isn't that old yet."

"Alright," she said. "I'll check into Hunter Banks."

"Good luck, girl," he told her before disconnecting.


	4. Chapters 6 and 7

**6**

Sam and Dean reached their motel room shortly before 3:00 pm and the Texas sun blazed down from the sky. Fingers of heat combed at the air, stirring up the pollen and humidity as it sought to burn the flesh of mortals. The interior of the Impala had heated up to an uncomfortable degree and both brothers were sweating by the time they entered their motel room.

Sam dashed for the shower before his brother could beat him to it and Dean shook his head as the door swung shut with a resounding thud. Dean pulled out the files that Sam had gathered on all of the victims. The last one killed had been Kya's cousin Elizabeth. If the book was the culprit that meant it was still in her room or had been removed by someone that had been in the room after her death. That narrowed the list of people down to police, crime scene investigators, and family. He sighed and began scanning the police report for the list of names that would tell him which investigators had been at the scene.

He sat on the edge of the bed, balancing a notebook on one thigh and the sheet of paper on the other while writing down the names they had to check out.

He looked up as Sam walked out, a towel wrapped firmly around his waist.

"What are you doing?" Sam asked.

"We have people to go interrogate," Dean replied.

"You make us sound like Nazis," the younger Winchester snorted as he pulled clean clothes from his duffel bag.

Dean just shook his head. He applied the last name of the final officer to the paper and set his handiwork down on the dresser for Sam to review as he took his overdue turn in the shower.

Sam got dressed slowly as his thoughts turned over to their impromptu female companion. There was something about her that Sam couldn't place. She was enigmatic if nothing else but that was what threw Sam off. He considered himself a good judge of character but he couldn't get a grip on what her character was exactly. He knew that she was witty, smart, cautious, and capable in her own right. There was something she was hiding from them, a secret that she wouldn't tell, and he could see it in her eyes. He couldn't stop wondering how she had become acquainted with what lurked in the dark because most people who did turned and ran the other way. Or died.

Sam turned as Dean's cell phone trilled loudly on the dresser top. The caller ID screen registered an unknown number and he pushed the talk button with uncertainty.

"Hello?" he asked.

"Sam," the caller verified. "It's Kya."

"How did you get this number?" he wondered reflexively.

"Wouldn't you like to know," she answered, making it clear she wasn't going to tell him.

Sam sighed audibly from his end. This girl was getting more mysterious by the minute.

"I have a lead that I'm going to follow up on. I just wanted to let you boys know that I won't be around today."

"What lead?" he asked, half fearing another evasive answer.

"A contact called me. I've been informed that Colton Banks has a son. His kid might have reason to want revenge for his father. He might have stolen the book."

Sam was surprised by her honesty. "We can go with you. You know, for back up."

"Sam, I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself. But thanks anyway, Smallville."

Sam smiled slightly at her pop culture television reference. "Okay. I think we're going to try and track down the book."

"If you get it, don't open it without me. I want in on this."

"I know," he said sincerely. "We'll let you know."

"Thanks," she replied. "Be careful."

She disconnected before he could get out a response and he stood there staring at the phone as Dean came out of the bathroom wearing faded denim jeans and nothing else. His hair swept droplet of water onto his face and he swiped at it with the towel in irritation.

"Who was that?" he asked.

Sam set the phone down and began pulling on his shoes. "Kya. She's checking out a lead."

Dean finished getting dressed in a dark blue undershirt and denim over shirt before pulling on his own worn out black boots. He stood from the bed and motioned for the door.

"Really? So are we."

Kya stepped down from the bike and walked up the gravel driveway to the two story house that stood on a lonely stretch of highway about three miles outside of town. The farmland surrounding it was wrapped in the golden haze of the still beaming sun and Kya spotted a trio of horses grazing quietly under the shade of a large oak about fifty yards away from the house.

The house itself was cheery enough, painted in a canary yellow with white trim and latticework for the shutters on the windows. An archway covered in trailing vines provided the way to the house and a white fence surrounded the establishment. She stepped onto the porch and the wooden floorboards creaked under her feet, as if announcing to the owner in their loyalty that an intruder was on the premises. Kya was startled at the sound of padded feet and clicking nails ascending the steps behind her and she whirled to meet a monstrously huge black Labrador. The dog stared at her, head bowed, legs planted firmly and she stared back, showing not an ounce of fear to the guardian of the house. She knew that animals could smell fear from a mile away and eventually her resolve paid off for the dog sat down on its haunches and whined softly.

She sighed and raised her hand to knock on the screen door when it suddenly swung open with a bang. She jumped back but recovered quickly.

"What do you want?" the man at the door asked.

She found herself looking at a man in his late twenties. He was tanned from hard labor in the sun and built like a farmer with broad shoulders and a tapered waist. His hair was brown with blonde streaks running through it, spiked up from his head about an inch or so, and his narrow face was made all the more attractive by a pair of startling blue eyes. He stood about a head taller than her but his height didn't intimidate her.

"You," she said simply.

Hunter Banks pushed open the screen door and stepped onto the porch, stretching his muscled arms and staring her down. She stood her ground, even reaching hand down to the Labrador's head that rested at her hip where the dog had taken up a comfortable watch.

"You're brash," he said.

"Best way to get things done," she replied. "Hunter Banks, I presume."

"You presume correctly. What do you want me for?"

"Answers," she replied, again keeping it simple and to the point.

One eyebrow arched above one marble blue eye and he leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Unless you don't read the news, I'm sure you know about the deaths that have been occurring around here."

She backed up to lean against the porch railing and was surprised when the dog faithfully followed her. Its owner didn't seem too happy about its sudden change in loyalty either.

"You're a little young to be a detective," he answered.

"Not a detective, at least not with the police department. My cousin was killed and I've been following leads that the police are too stupid to look for."

This brought a hint of a smile to the young rancher's face. "So what leads brought you to my doorstep?"

"Your father," she said blatantly. "And the book he wrote in prison before he was put to death."

A dark cloud passed over Hunter's face and the arms across his chest got even tighter until it seemed that the muscles hidden under the skin would pop out. She remained calm outwardly but inwardly was alert and ready for anything. He wanted him to think of her as a petite, nosy, and altogether helpless young woman if he was hiding any deep dark secrets of his own.

"Who are you to come here and bring up that shit?" he demanded.

"I told you. I'm family to one of the victims. Family that wants answers."

Hunter's eyes flashed dangerously. "My father was innocent. It was my bastard uncle that did those killings and the town wanted a scapegoat. So they killed my dad. Cowards, the lot of them!"

"I'm not saying I don't believe your father was innocent. I want to know about the accusations pointed toward him that he was involved in the occult. And most of all I want to know about that book."

"Why should I even talk to you?" he growled.

"Because I'm not going to leave you alone. If your father was a good man then I'm assuming he must have raised a good son. So if you're as good as he was supposed to be, then you'll help me."

Hunter could find no scathing remark to this keen observation and well played reverse psychology. Kya tried hard to hide the triumphant smirk that threatened to explode onto her features.

Hunter sighed and sank into a wooden chair with padding on it to the left of the porch. He offered her the other seat across from his with a weary move of his arm and she accepted. She didn't relax fully into the chair as he had done; rather she sat on the edge of it ready to spring to her feet at a moment's notice. The dog followed her loyally and planted itself at her feet with a wag of its china-destructive tail and lolling tongue.

"My dog likes you," Hunter offered.

"I can see that," she replied.

She reached a hand down to pet the dog's massive head and waited patiently for his story to come out.

**7**

Dean slammed the door to the Impala nearly two hours later and swiped his hands through his hair in irritation. Sam got in next to his brother and slid the seat belt over his lap.

"Okay, Dean," he said quietly. "We've checked out all the leads and they're all dead ends. Maybe it's time to get our hands dirty."

Dean nodded and started up the car. "Really dirty."

He drove the Impala across town and into a quiet residential neighborhood filled with middle class homes that the rest of society dreamed about owning. He parked the black car down the street and climbed out, forgoing the usual grabbing of equipment and following Sam down the oak-shaded sidewalk. The street was quiet even this early in the afternoon but they were careful to watch for neighbor's prying eyes through curtained windows.

A wooden fence surrounded Elizabeth's property and it was to this eight foot tall wooden opponent that they went. Dean made a cup of his hands and heaved Sam up with the kind of practiced ease that only came from being brothers and getting into far too much trouble together. He waited while Sammy released the latch on the gate from within and he stepped inside with a quick glance behind him. No one had raised an alarm yet and he crossed his fingers that they had gone undetected. Sam hurried to the back door in a low crouch but found that breaking and entering wouldn't be needed. The window above the kitchen sink was open and the curtains were sucked outside it, fluttering in the breeze. The house was quiet as both its remaining occupants were at work until at least late evening. Dean nodded at Sam and Sam shook his head.

"No way," Sam said, stepping away from the window. "If anyone's busting his ass it's going to be you."

"Thanks," Dean said dryly. "Appreciate the vote of confidence."

Sam beamed a false smile his way. "Anytime."

Dean put one foot on the stone beneath the window and jumped until his right hand latched onto the ledge. He less-than-gracefully grabbed it with his other hand and propelled himself upward with his feet firmly planted on the wall. Once he had wriggled in sufficiently enough to get his underarms against the windowsill he had to struggle to bring his waist in through the window. He brought one leg in and awkwardly turned around with one foot in the sink and the other hanging out the window. He found himself thankful for the tidy housekeeping of the Mrs., as there were no dishes in the sink this afternoon. The thought left his mind as he tried to bring his other leg in, lost his balance on the slick metal of the sink, and tumbled backward to land in a heap on the kitchen floor.

"Ow!" he commented.

"Told you so," Sam said from outside.

"Shut up," Dean retorted, getting up and stretching his limbs. "Or I'll leave you out there to climb through the window. And I'll sit here with popcorn."

"Do they even have popcorn?" Sammy wondered.

Dean glanced around the spacious kitchen, saw no popcorn, shrugged and turned back to his brother's voice. "And a La-Z-Boy. Good for watching reality TV."

"Open the damn door, Dean," Sam said sharply.

Dean sighed and opened the locks on the backdoor to let Sam into the house. His brother swung the door shut behind him and both brothers turned in surprise as a low growl echoed into the kitchen. A sleek German Shepard stood at the entry hall to the kitchen, lips peeled back to reveal dangerously sharp canines, hair raised along its back, and feet planted to spring.

"Shit," Dean muttered, dodging behind the island in the center of the kitchen. "Okay, down boy, nice Cujo."

"They must have gotten a dog after Elizabeth died," Sam said. "And Cujo was a St. Bernard."

"Sam!" Dean exclaimed. "Give me useless facts later!"

"Right," Sam said. "Umm. . . .we could lock it in the downstairs bathroom!"

"And then the owners would know somebody broke in."

"We don't exactly have time to sit here and discuss it, Dean, unless you want to become kibbles," Sam pointed out.

"Okay, all right," Dean said. "Sometimes I really hate this job."

He dodged out from behind the island and the dog gave chase, nails clicking on the tile floor. Dean hung a sharp right back around the island and dashed out into the hallway that opened into the living room. He could hear both the dog and his brother hot on his heels, and he sensed the leap as he made one of his own. He climbed up the back of the sofa and launched himself airborne behind it as the dog met the space where he had been seconds ago.

"Shit!" he yelled.

He heard the dog land behind him and pick up the chase as Dean threw open the door to the downstairs bathroom and dodged inside. Instinct guided him as he clambered onto the white porcelain sink just as the German Shepard skidded into the bathroom. Sam appeared behind him at the doorway and dodged out of sight as Cujo's cousin leapt at Dean. He jumped from the sink and the dog's teeth cut into his jeans and grazed his skin as he propelled himself back out of the bathroom.

Sam slammed the door shut and they heard the dog hit the door with a crash and a yelp. Dean leaned down and put his hands on his knees, breathing laboriously.

"Remind me to bring a stick next time," he gasped.

"Why? You want to play fetch with it?"

"No, I want to play doggie Piñata," he corrected, before standing straight.

Sam smiled and lead the way upstairs as the dog snarled and growled, throwing its weight at the unyielding door.

"How are we gonna get Cujo out of there? Without getting eaten," Dean wondered.

"Open the door and run like hell," Sam offered.

Dean shrugged and couldn't argue that tried and true logic. He pushed open the door to Elizabeth's room and stepped in. It was the same as it had been last time they had broken in to check for any supernatural leftovers. The walls were a cheerful pastel yellow and the curtains covering the double glass doors that opened up onto a white balcony were lacy, flowing and white. The bed was an oak sleigh bed with a black silk cover printed with large red roses, the pillows and sheets matching. An old rocking chair sat in the corner near a large bookshelf filled to the brim with books of all shapes and sizes. The metal of the lamp sitting on the table next to the chair had long grown cold and the beautifully crafted maple dresser seemed lonely in its corner, as if it knew it would never be opened again.

They moved simultaneously to the book shelf and began searching through it, reading titles and checking for one that seemed out of place or recently used. The only problem was, all of them seemed used and well loved.

"Man, this girl loved her books," Sam said quietly.

"Yup," Dean agreed.

He said no more. He could feel the emptiness in the room as potently as if he had known the shy, introverted, studious Elizabeth himself. He thought he felt the loss near the rocking chair especially and imagined that was where she spent most of her time, quietly rocking back and forth with a portal to another world spread open on her lap. When a search of the bookshelf came up empty they spread out around the large room, quickly checking through drawers and underneath the mattress.

"Dean," Sam said quietly, but with a voice that showed a level of panic.

Dean moved to stand beside his brother and felt his heart drop as he read the pink post-it note stuck on a wooden note board on the wall beside the deceased girl's bed. _Elizabeth- Borrowed the book you were reading since you're going out of town. I'll have it back before you want to read it again. Love, Ashley_

Dean turned a questioning eye on Sam.

"I don't get it. If the book was gone when she died, how was she killed?"

"Maybe we're dealing with more than just the book. Either way, we have to figure out who this Ashley girl is before she gets added to the list of the dead."

Dean nodded solemnly. "Maybe Kya will know who she is."

Sam returned the nod and walked from the bedroom.

"Let's hope so. In the meantime . . . .,"

"Let's see how fast we can run."


	5. Chapters 8 and 9

**8**

Kya took comfort in the dog's solidity as Colton's son explained to her his version of what had really happened. She clutched a glass of lemonade in her hand that he had brought out about fifteen minutes ago, and the perspiration from the glass mingled with her skin. For some reason she couldn't explain she felt on edge and jumpy, every part of her body screaming that she pay close attention to everything surrounding her.

Colton had explained to her that his father had been accused of murdering and mutilating ten girls in the area between the ages of 12 and 26. The crimes had been appalling and horrendous, the work of a true devil in human flesh with no regard for morality or humanity.

"The police couldn't find enough evidence to convict my Uncle," he continued. "But they needed a scapegoat. So the blame fell to my father, who was without alibi and had been seen with a few of the girls."

"Why was he with the girls?" she interrupted. Her head buzzed slightly and she wiped her hand against her forehead, smearing the gathering drops of sweat.

"He had been a high school math teacher," Hunter explained. "He was tutoring them for their SATS."

Kya nodded for him to continue and looked at the lemonade suspiciously. She had only taken a few sips but the buzzing in her head wouldn't cease. The hand on the dog's head felt heavy and she quickly set the glass down on the porch beside her feet.

"The rest of the story is simple. My father was accused, unjustly, put to death and my Uncle walked free for the first few months. Eventually, a mob of townspeople, convinced that he had been the real perpetrator of the crimes, killed him in a riot. He was beaten to death and the local law enforcement wrote it off as temporary insanity of the bereaved townsfolk."

"Where was he buried?"

"In the cemetery about five miles outside of town on the Highway," Hunter responded. "He has an unmarked grave. The townspeople just threw his body in there and never bothered to give him a headstone."

Kya felt a chill sweep her spine and her stomach turned slightly. Beneath her hand the dog, who had been called Buck by his master, lifted its ears as though listening to a sound that she couldn't make out. She wasn't entirely sure that theory was all that far off the mark.

"That doesn't tell me about the book, Hunter, or the accusations that he was involved in the occult," she said, sharper than she intended to.

"My father experimented with . . . .different forms of religion. And he wrote a lot, for a math teacher. It was his escape, his way out of life. He had always wanted to be a writer but he wasn't so good at it that his books would sell. My father was a secretive man and even I didn't know that much about him."

"But all of a sudden his books started selling. What happened?"

Hunter sighed and leaned forward in his chair. His eyes studied her, searching for something that he obviously found because he began talking again. She didn't fail to notice the tiny glint in his eye as he spoke even though her vision was beginning to blur. She thought either it was the pounding heat or he had spiked her drink.

"What do you want me to say?" he asked. "That he sold his soul to the devil for instant success?"

"The truth would be nice," she shot back.

"The truth is, it's possible. My father was involved in a lot of things that weren't exactly considered kosher around here. It's possible that he did make a deal with the devil. A lot of things are possible."

"How about that book being cursed? Is that possible?"

Hunter nodded and the hint of a smile played at his lips. He kept his gaze steady on her. The hand resting on Buck's silken fur felt the dog's muscles twitch as its ears perked up, tuning in again to a sound that she couldn't hear. Her stomach rolled slightly and the back of her spine turned to ice. She leapt from the chair just as it shattered into pieces. Hunter dodged back from the shrapnel that exploded from what had been his deck chair and Buck took a place at Kya's side, snarling and snapping.

Before she could regain her wits and figure out what had just happened, Hunter lunged at her, wrapping rancher strong arms around her arms to pin them in place. She struggled, but something that he had put in the lemonade made her limbs weaker than they should have been. Her thoughts were slightly muddled, running slower than usual. Her vision blurred as she made out the shape of a man in front of her, blood running freely from places all over his body. His face was handsome and closely resembled Hunter's if he had aged twenty years or so. The man moved stiffly, but quickly, towards her and she felt her heart sink as she realized that the ghost of Colton Banks wasn't the only trouble on the menu. Now she had the ghost of Jason Banks and his homicidal nephew to deal with. Beside her Buck spun on his heel and turned on his master, clamping powerful dog jaws down on his calf and twisting his head viciously from side to side. Hunter howled in pain and released his grip on her to deal with the dog.

The yelp of Buck as Hunter kicked him shocked her enough to bring her back to her senses. She really liked that dog. She spun on her heel, shoving a chair in the way of the oncoming spirit before backhanding Hunter as he came at her as well. She grabbed the dog's collar and hauled him to his feet, rushing him off the porch and onto the open ground of the farmland. Hunter pursued her and tried to tackle her but she spun to the right, planting a foot in his backside that sent him sprawling to the ground. Buck attacked his master, a cacophony of snarls and barks that let her know that situation was well under control.

She spun as the ghost of Jason Banks came running up behind her and dodged to the side to avoid the swipe of a pickaxe. She brought her hand up, edging back towards her motorcycle slowly.

"You picked the wrong girl to haunt, buddy," she said softly.

She threw her raised hand outward, already feeling the tingling warmth coursing through her skin, and a fireball erupted at the ghost's feet. She squinted her eyes and another flame shot from the ground near him, catching his pant leg on fire.

She didn't wait to see if he would incinerate. She called the dog and rushed to her bike, not entirely certain that she could take him with her, but sure that she wasn't going to leave the faithful dog behind.

Buck leapt onto the seat in front of her, narrowly falling, and she managed to wrap an arm around him enough to keep him secure as she started the bike up. The escape was unsteady at best, and she narrowly avoided missing a tree as she repositioned herself to see past the dog. She had to go slower to accommodate for the dog's bulk and in order to keep a firm grip on him, but she managed to keep the bike steady enough to ride. For the first time she thought seriously about investing in a car.

Without looking back she sped away from the farm, placing a call to the Winchesters when she hit the highway.

**9**

"If that dog pisses on the carpet, you're paying for the damage," Dean said in a low voice.

"Shut up," Kya shot back. "That dog probably has better aim than you."

"Ouch," Sam commented. "It's a nice dog."

They crowded the sidewalk as the sun began its descent into the hills surrounding the city and approached Ashley's house as quickly as they could while bickering over Kya's newly adopted dog. The phone call she had placed to the brothers had been responded to quickly and they had met her on the highway, picking up Buck and returning to the motel room. They had devised a sketchy game plan and left Buck in the room to his own devices, much to Dean's chagrin.

She had told them about the other worrisome ghost and the psychopathic son, but there main objective was to find the book before it killed again. Jason and Hunter Banks would have to be dealt with at a later date. At the present moment they were focused on retrieving the book from Ashley before she became its next victim.

Kya rang the doorbell as the brothers stood impatiently behind her. She could hear Dean shifting his feet in anticipation and Sam cleared his throat as footsteps sounded in the entry hall. A pretty young girl answered the door and her face brightened when she saw Kya at the forefront of her visitors.

"Kya!" the girl exclaimed. "I didn't think you were still in town. What brings you here?"

Kya smiled at the girl and wrapped her in a hug, glad to see her alive. "Business, actually. This is Dean and Sam Winchester."

Ashley smiled at the brothers and motioned them into the house. "My parents aren't home right now. They've gone out for dinner. I was just going to sit down and read, but then you came knocking."

Kya's stomach clenched and she cast a glance behind her to see the relieved expression on Dean's face. They had only just made it in time.

Kya sat on the couch with her cousin's best friend and tried to figure out how to ask for the book without alarming the girl. Dean beat her to it.

"Ashley," he began without prelude. "The book you borrowed from Elizabeth. We need it back."

"Oh," she said, a little surprised. "I haven't even read it yet."

"That's a good thing," Sam muttered. "I know, but we have to return it to the museum. It was stolen a few weeks back and we finally tracked it here."

"Um," Kya interrupted, before Ashley could ask questions. "Sam and Dean are private detectives. The museum hired them to find their stolen book."

"How did you get caught up in it?" Ashley asked.

"Well, Elizabeth was the last who had it. They tracked me down at the funeral. What can I say? They're good at their job."

"I didn't see you two at the funeral . . . .," Ashley started.

"We blend," Dean interrupted.

Ashley nodded. "Right. Okay well it's on my dresser. I'll get it."

Kya motioned her back down quickly. "That's okay. I'll go get it."

Dean cast her a glance that she interpreted well and she shot him a look back that told him not to worry. She wasn't an idiot and wasn't going to open the book by herself. Ashley looked like she was going to protest but Kya cast her a reassuring smile before climbing the stairs two at a time. She could hear Sam attempting small talk downstairs and smiled. She was getting the impression that he was the mediator between the two brothers. Dean seemed more intense, more focused on his work when he wasn't at play with the women they ran into, while Sam seemed to connect with the people that they encountered and seemed in a constant state of apology for his more outgoing brother.

She entered Ashley's room and went straight to the dresser. On it sat a book bound in brown leather with the words of the Latin title written on the front in embossed gold. The author's name was printed at the bottom in small box letters. It wasn't anything flashy or overly special by appearance. It seemed like the kind of book that most people would pass up without ever pulling out of a library book shelf. Except the closer she got to it she felt an overwhelming compulsion to open it and at the very least read the first line. Her hands touched the jacket and she felt a chill. It was as cold as the skin of a reptile and to her imagination wondered if it would leap off the table and take flight around the room like a bat. The compulsion to open it grew stronger before she reminded herself sharply and with much mental discipline that this book was deadly. It had killed her cousin. The need to open it diminished to a tolerable level and she scooped it up in her hands being careful to hold it tightly shut.

"So that's our killer," a voice said from the doorway.

She turned to face Dean, leaning against the doorjamb. "I guess so. I felt like I wanted to open it just by being near it."

"I'm getting that feeling from here," he informed her honestly. "And the redhead downstairs is getting suspicious, I think."

"She's a smart girl," Kya told him. "Our story was impromptu at best. I would be suspicious too."

Dean nodded and she found herself noticing the depth of his hazel eyes. In the waning sunlight filtering through the blinds in the room they appeared bright green flecked with gold that sparkled. She shook the thoughts from her mind and clutched the book tighter, ignoring its almost sentient cry to be opened and read.

"We should get back downstairs," she offered, awkwardly.

He moved from the doorway and held his hands out as if he was presenting a red carpet. She brushed past him and the slight contact sent a tremor through her. She thought maybe she was going nuts. This man was a womanizer. She had seen it with her own two eyes and yet she was getting caught up in his attractive qualities, which weren't few. If she hadn't been working a case with him she probably would have written him off as a player and never gave him a second thought. Now her brain was allowing not just a second thought, but also a third, fourth, fifth, and down the line.

She managed to squash the thoughts as she came back into the living room to say goodbye to Ashley and gather up the youngest Winchester.

"It looks ordinary enough," Sam offered.

"Except it seems to have a telepathic quality to it," Kya added.

"Well we can stand here and stare at it, or figure out what to do next," Dean finished.

They stood around the bed, where the book sat unopened on the covers. Behind them Buck lay in a heap, probably wondering what these crazy humans were talking about. To him, life was simple. Kya envied him.

"I still don't get how Elizabeth was killed when she wasn't in possession of the book," Sam said. He sat down on the edge of the bed with his arms on his knees.

"Well, I'm developing a theory that involves another ghost," Kya told him. "It's possible that Jason Banks killed her."

"So what?" Dean asked. "We're caught up in a feud? A competition?"

"Well, if Jason Banks was the actual killer then it makes sense that his ghost would still be as murderous. But ghosts usually need energy from the living to feed off to stay rooted here. Maybe Hunter is that link."

"What about Colton?" Dean wondered. "How does he fit into all of this?"

"Maybe he's tied to the book," Sam mused. "Could be when he wrote it he tied a piece of his soul to it. We can't know what the book is about without opening it. And we aren't getting any answers by theorizing."

"Well every other person who's opened that damn thing has turned up dead."

Kya nodded. "Still, if we want to get to the bottom of this we're going to have to open it."

Dean sighed and the other two gathered at his side. He picked up the book and ran his hand over the smooth leather covering. It seemed to pulsate beneath his hand, as though the leather skin were trying to come alive and take form. He nearly shuddered but pushed the wave of revulsion back as his brother and Kya looked on from his left and right. From the floor all three lifted backpacks, loaded with flashlights, extra batteries, guns, extra ammo, several other various weapons, and other assorted equipment. Sam had developed a theory and when he had told the others they had prepared traveling gear, just in case his theory was right. Dean was hoping that his brother was wrong, but when Sam had a theory it usually proved to be true. He knew that he was stalling but he couldn't help himself. He had never before walked into a fight so blind and it made him nervous. Kya reached over and squeezed his hand reassuringly.

"Do it, Dean. We'll read the first line together."

"I swear, it had better not say, 'It was a dark and stormy night'," was all Dean had to offer before he jerked open the cover.

Together they read the first line out loud, their voices rising in harmony in the still of the motel room. Even Buck looked up from his nap to eye them suspiciously.

Dean felt a pull, as though his body was being turned inside out, and he unconsciously dropped the book to grab the hands of his companions. He opened his eyes when he realized that the book had never hit the ground.

The carpet beneath his feet felt strange, more solid than it had before, and he heard Sam groan beside him.

Dean realized that they were no longer in the motel room. They were in the country side, far removed from civilization. He looked to his right where the hills surrounding them sloped and rolled, appearing as giant tortoises in a deep sleep. To his left lay a forest that appeared to go on and on forever with no reliable means out. The tree line was dark and forbidding and it made his skin crawl to even contemplate entering it. Behind him lay a gravel road that ended in a twenty foot tall, ornate, black metal fence. The designs at the top seemed to be thorny ivy and the gates that allowed entrance to the grounds were tightly shut against the outside world. Dean summoned his courage, taking strength from the hands in his own, and look in front of him where his other two companion's attention had already been drawn.

The sky above was dark, roiling with thunderheads, and just as in a classic horror novel lightning split the sky in anger, raking claws against the clouds as if to rend them to pieces. There was a chill wind bristling past them, the kind of wind that bit into flesh and made one wish fervently for a fireplace and hot chocolate. Beside him Kya moved closer, either from fear or from cold, he couldn't tell which.

Before them sat a mansion that sprawled upon the ground as if the land itself had disgorged it from hell. It rose up from the land, a great monstrous slumbering beast that appeared to have at least three stories and the front of which was comprised of steepled roofs and hundreds of windows. The front of the mansion was overgrown with twisting snakes of vines, thousands of vipers that seemed to writhe in the illuminations of lightning that appeared every few seconds. Double chimneys, appearing as cylindrical tubes, shot up from the house in various strategetic locations and he could make out more of the house behind the main part, as if a large courtyard took up the middle and the house wound its way around that vast expanse of empty ground. The windows were dark, silent, and seemed to watch them with interest. Dean felt his skin crawl and for once in his lifetime of facing down things that would make most people go screaming to their mommy, he was the one that was afraid.

"Oh crap," he managed.


	6. Chapter 10

**10**

Sam was overwhelmed by the enormity of the hulking behemoth that lay sprawled out before them. The picture was becoming clear to him and he was beginning to understand what had happened, not only to them, but to the other victims as well. Beside him Kya was shivering and he watched his older brother remove the well worn brown leather jacket around his shoulders and place it over her smaller frame. For once without the ulterior motive of a bedroom romp or phone number, he drew the petite woman into his arms, wrapping her tightly against him to ward off both fear and the plaguing cold.

"Okay guys," Sam said, through slightly chattering teeth. "Here's what I'm thinking."

"Get our asses inside that thing and get warm?" Dean guessed.

"I'm not really jumping for joy at the idea of being in there," Kya managed to say. "Although out here isn't much better."

Sam shook his head. "No. I think I know what's going on."

"Well, save it for indoors Sammy," Dean said. "We're going to freeze to death out here."

They began the intimidating walk to the front door of the mansion and each step seemed to get heavier as they approached. The mansion rose up taller than ever in front of them, looming and imposing, a shadow of death on a dark landscape. It seemed to gaze down at them with hunger, hundreds of lightless windows flashing like eyes in the lightning, as if it could sense their presence and watched their every move. Sam's stomach turned even as his skin froze to match the temperature his blood was reaching. He had seen a lot of things in his life, things that scared small children and adults alike. The horror movies were often times more bloody and gruesome than real life, but all the same, the monstrosities that lurked around the corner waiting for the foolish to come their way was nothing short of terrifying, especially when those monsters were real. Even so, Sam Winchester could easily claim that little in his line of work had ever truly scared him. He knew that his brother would say the same. And looking at this house now, everything changed. There was something about it, a heaviness that permeated the air, an aura of evil that radiated off the wood and brick skin that made his heart trip hammer and his breath catch in his throat.

He looked at Dean clutching Kya's hand tightly, the way his lips were pressed together in a thin line and his eyes gleamed dully in the thin light, and knew that his older brother felt the same terror that he did.

Without realizing it they had reached the front door. It was carved from solid oak. It towered above them at least fifteen feet high and the brass knockers were embedded in the mouths of polar opposites. One side was guarded by the silver face of a cherub, miniature wings outspread behind the tiny face that gleamed with saintly mischief. The other side held a demon that stood vigilant, face frozen forever in a gold grimace of hatred, possibly for being paired next to its mortal enemy for all eternity. All over the door, expertly carved into wood, were the faces of angels and demons meshed together in one bizarre tapestry of the ancient battle between good and evil. They seemed to meld together until the stunned onlookers couldn't tell where an angel began and a demon ended. It seemed as though the carver in question had been trying to convey a message to those that viewed his work: good and evil were so closely bound they could never be separated, and soon one wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two.

"Okay," Kya offered, a tremor breaking her usually steady voice. "That's just creepy."

"Should we knock?" Sam wondered.

Dean reached up a hand that proved to be as equally unsteady as Kya's voice and grasped the knocker of the angel, taking more comfort from the left side of the door rather than the right. He banged it once then released it and stepped back.

The door swung open and Sam wasn't at all surprised to learn that nobody had opened the door. He heard his brother let out an explosive breath that he probably hadn't even realized he had been holding. Sam led the way through the doors that now stood open into a giant grand foyer.

Sam also wasn't surprised when the doors slammed shut behind them. It was so cliché that even in his fear he almost laughed. What did surprise him was the soft glow that erupted from a candelabrum that hung suspended overhead. Sam craned his neck, having trouble taking in the whole room at once, and scanned each thing individually. He noticed that both Dean and Kya were doing the same.

Above him the brass candelabra was lit by nearly a hundred white candles, each one in a holder that ran in an elaborate spiral from the center outward. Sam was amazed that the ceiling didn't catch on fire but then he realized that the chain holding the suspended chandelier was rather long. He gazed into the shadows that loomed around the room and made out two hallways to his left that disappeared into shadows so deep it was impossible to tell where they lead. Beside the hallways was an arched doorway that also led into blackness. To his right were two other arched doorways, side by side, huge in design. In front of him was a spiraling staircase that lead onto an upper floor landing. The staircase came from both sides of the room, each side meeting on opposite sides of the landing in perfect union. Along the walls that lead up to the second floor burning candles lit, again not catching the house on fire. The room was now bright enough to see adequately and Sam could make out two small doorways behind the double staircase, one on each side, that lead towards the back of the house. Behind him, on either side of the imposing front door that had sealed itself shut, were two double paned glass windows overlooking the front of the property. The windows were huge and curtained by thick black velvet that was separated down the middle enough to see outside. Sam dropped his backpack on the floor, letting it dangle from his fingers by the straps.

Beside him Dean opened his own backpack and began loading up on weapons, sliding a gun into his waistband among other things. Kya's brow furrowed as she stared around the room and she kept fingering a Zippo that was clipped onto her belt with a black lighter casing.

"Now do you want to know what I think?" Sam asked impatiently.

His voice echoed back at him slightly and he jumped in mild surprise.

"You already told us," Kya said, distracted. "But tell us again. It's way too quiet in here anyway."

"I think that we're inside the book," Sam said. "I think that when Colton wrote this damn thing he put some kind of curse on it that transports the readers inside. It makes sense as to why there was no trace of supernatural activity where the victims were found. They died in here, and their bodies were thrown back out where they had been taken."

"Oh that's morbid," Kya commented.

"So it's like a demented Choose Your Own Adventure," Dean added. "I used to read those when I was kid."

"Please say that you didn't always die," Kya said.

"I didn't always die."

"Liar," Sam said absently. "Anyway, I'm assuming that Colton's ghost is somewhere in this hell hole. He was tied to the book so it makes sense that his ghost would be bound to it as well. I'm thinking that if we find him, we can find the way out of here."

"I'm assuming that the catch is we have to live long enough," Dean responded.

"This is by far the craziest thing I've ever come up against," Kya said dully.

"Ditto," Sam agreed.

She took a deep breath and cast a glance at both brothers. "Well since we're in this for the long haul, I have to come clean."

She watched as both Sam and Dean quit adjusting their equipment to focus sharp gazes on her. She knew that they had been waiting for this, for the reason why she knew what she did. She hadn't been planning to tell them anything about her, especially not what she could do, but it seemed that no that they were in this for life or death there wouldn't be any other choice.

"Actually," she said, removing the Zippo from her belt with practiced ease and flipping it open with a deft movement of the wrist. "I think I'll just show you."

She thumbed down on the wheel and a flame sprouted. She focused on it and held out her right hand palm up. The flame lifted from the Zippo and moved across the short expanse to settle above her opened hand, hovering there.

"What the hell?" Dean gaped.

"Pyrokinesis," Sam stated, obviously as shocked as his brother. "I've heard of it but never seen it before."

"I was born with it," she said, skimping over the details. "My father urged me to learn to control it, so that he didn't have to keep calling the fire department."

Dean laughed. "That's a handy trick. Do you have to have flame available?"

Kya shook her head and tossed the fireball up and down in the air absently, as if it were a tennis ball. "No. I can create it with my mind but that just lights things up on fire. If I use flame that's already available I can manipulate it."

She focused on the bouncing flame and it roared higher, lifting from her palm until it sprouted eight waving arms. It resembled a tiny sun hovering in the air, as if a kindergartner had drawn his depiction of the live giving object and brought it to life. She focused again and it returned to the fireball that it had originally been. One more focus and she returned the flame to the lighter, depositing it in its place so that it seemed nothing more than a Zippo that someone had struck. She flicked the lighter shut and returned it to her belt clip.

"Pyrokinesis," Sam said again. "That's quite a destructive power you've got there. The stories I've heard all say the same thing. Not to mention that Stephen King book, Firestarter."

Kya laughed. "Actually, pyrokinetic is the technical term. I am a firestarter. And yes, it's a powerful ability. It's more dangerous in an uncontrolled mind though. Not to say that it gets weaker with control, it gets stronger that way, but it's far more unpredictable if you can't control it."

Sam nodded. "I was wondering what you were hiding."

"Just that," she said. "I know about the things you hunt because my own search to understand this led me to the supernatural. I got interested in it, and my dad travels a lot, so when I went with him I encountered things I couldn't explain on a world wide basis. Being able to start fires with my mind didn't make it so far a stretch to believe in ghosts and demons. I was searching for who I was and I happened to find other things along the way."

"Well, now we know," Dean said.

He glanced around the room and all of the imposing structures, from doorways to staircase, seemed to hide the worst of what lay under children's beds and lurked in their closets.

"And now I have another question," he said. "Which way do we go?"


	7. Chapter 11

**11**

Kya didn't need a flashlight. She once again transferred the flame of the Zippo to her palm, stretching the flame until it engulfed her hand like a torch. The flames didn't hurt, they tingled but they didn't harm her. She noticed that Sam kept staring at her in mild amazement and she had to hide a smile.

The mansion was so huge they would have been better served time-wise by splitting up but a unanimous agreement between them all ousted that idea. Their chances of survival were increased by remaining together as long as they could.

They had entered one of the hallways to their left and now both flashlight beams and torch lit the way. There were no miraculous lights that sprang up from this section of the house and Dean was busy memorizing their path in case they had to turn around and get back to the foyer. They had been walking for what seemed like ages and there had been no sign of a door to be found on either side. Kya was beginning to think the house was playing tricks on them and this hallway would stretch into eternity and beyond.

"How long have we been walking?" Sam wondered, echoing her thoughts.

Dean consulted his wristwatch. "About thirty minutes."

"Maybe we should turn around. I don't think this goes anywhere," Kya commented.

Both brothers stopped short, beginning to think that she was right. Sam turned around and his breath caught in his throat, eyes wide with shock. Kya glanced in the direction that had so caught his attention but saw nothing but empty hallway stretching beyond them.

"Sam?" she asked, concerned.

Dean went to stand in front of his stunned brother and waved a hand in front of his face. "Sammy! What is it?" he demanded.

"It can't be," he stammered. "It can't . . . .,"

All Dean could do was look at Kya in puzzlement.

Sam stopped short in the hallway. He could sense his brother near him, but it was as if he couldn't shake himself from the image before him enough to respond properly. Panic gripped his throat and his heart thudded against his chest so hard he thought it was trying to break free from the bones that caged it.

Before him was Jess. She walked down the hallway toward him, arms outstretched, fresh blood from the gaping wound in her stomach spewing forth over her white dress. Her blond curls tumbled down her back and over her shoulders, blue eyes searching his face imploringly. He took a few halting steps forward, felt a pressure on his chest that stopped any further movement and resisted it fiercely, trying to get to the love of his life.

"No!" he screamed. "Let me go! I have to go to her!"

Kya stumbled back in shock as Sam went from shock to fierce anger. Dean's hand was against his brother's chest, pushing him backward, away from whatever had captured his full attention. The hallway still appeared as empty as it had been before. As Dean applied pressure Sam begin to struggle with ferocity, pushing back with enough force to send Dean sprawling to the ground.

"Dean!" she cried, rushing to his side.

"Shit," he mumbled. "What's gotten into him?"

Kya turned to look over her shoulder where Sam was raising his hands as if touching the face of an invisible intruder. There was pain in his eyes so deep that it broke Kya's heart to see it, and a degree of anger that made his eyes glint in the light of her flaming hand. Dean's flashlight had tumbled from his grip and landed the way they had come, beam shining into blackness and throwing long shadows on the walls.

"It's this house," she muttered. "This place is playing tricks on us."

"We have to snap him out of it!" Dean cried, jumping to his feet.

Sam stretched his hands towards Jessica's face and when he touched her skin it was as cold as the ground in which she lay. A look of confusion spread across his features. The ground? His Jessica had been dead for what seemed like a lifetime ago.

"But . . .you're dead," he stammered.

Her serene face contorted into anger. "Thanks to you," she snapped. "You could have told me, you could have warned me. You lied to me, Sam."

"No," he whispered. "I was protecting you."

"Great job you did with that!" she hissed. "I'm dead because of you. If you had never left me for your damn brother then I would still be alive. You left me alone to die!"

He stumbled back, tears washing his face, hands clutching his head as he shook his head fervently. The word "no" tumbled from his mouth in choked waves.

"It's your fault," she whispered. "It's your fault! I had everything! I had a life, a future, everything to live for! And you took it all away from me. You took everything for one road trip!"

He fell against the wall helpless against the onslaught of her words. They stung, they burned, and they gutted him from the inside. His chest hurt as his breathing accelerated to the point of hyperventilation. He put his hands over his ears but her words echoed inside his head, unfazed by the covering. He couldn't escape.

Jessica leaned down in front of him, forcefully taking his face in her hands until their eyes met. Her blue eyes burned with hatred and that alone shattered his heart into a million pieces.

"You. Killed. Me."

Dean rushed to his brother and as he knelt in front of him he felt an ice cold shudder run through his body. Sam was sobbing, tears cascading down his face, features wrenched in pain so deep it came from his baby brother's core. His breathing was ragged and harsh, each breath forced out through lungs so tight with pain it seemed like they would implode. Dean put two fingers to Sam's neck and pulled them back in shock as he released that Sammy's heartbeat was reaching a dangerous level.

"Sam!" he cried, taking his brother by the shoulders. "Sammy!"

"Sam, whatever it is it isn't real," Kya breathed, kneeling at his other side. "It isn't real Sam."

"Jess," he gasped. "I'm sorry!"

Kya cast a questioning glance at Dean but he shrugged it off. "Sam, she isn't real. Jessica is dead. She isn't real. Listen to me!"

Sam reached a hand up and clutched at Dean's shirt desperately. Dean seized on that interaction.

"Sam, you have to listen to me. You can't leave me like this; you have to stay with me!"

"Dean," Kya said worriedly. "He's going into shock."

"I know," he replied through clenched teeth.

Kya stood up, searching for a way to see what Sam saw. If she could locate the source of his pain then perhaps she could fight it off and free him from its grip. But this Jess, this girl that pained him to the point of death, was visible only by Sam. Despair gripped her. She had only just met them, had no time to make a real connection, but something had bound her to them for this journey at least. She couldn't watch Sam die.

She was still racking her brain for a plausible means to help when something solid slammed into her, forcing her to the ground. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sam collapse in his brother's arms, deathly still, and then she felt the fire of blood erupt in her side.


	8. Chapters 12 and 13

**12**

Kya shoved with all her strength and her hands melded with a furry mass. The mass went flying off her and she scrambled to her feet, amazed that her hand was still lit up. In the flickering flame she made out a dark shape on four legs, sleek black fur, body like a Doberman, lips peeled back in a snarl to reveal wickedly sharp teeth. The eyes of the dog glowed red as though blood had been poured into the sockets in place of eyeballs. When it breathed in sharp pants gouts of smoke plumed from its mouth, as if its lungs were coated in fire and all it could do was cough up the residual ash. Kya took an involuntarily step backward, suddenly uncertain of whether or not she would walk out of this fight alive or not. She knew what she was dealing with. From the same line of hellish fiends that bred Nightmares, pit black horses that breathed fire and wouldn't tolerate riders of any good breed, came the infamous Hellhound. The trackers of the underworld, the guards of gates that were to remain untouched, the scouts of powerful demons searching the world through eyes that couldn't rise above the surface, these dogs were the source that hell relied upon.

Kya spread her feet and raised her arms in a fighting stance, one hand still lit with the flame from the Zippo. From what she knew about these dogs, the flames she commanded wouldn't do much good. Behind the snarling, bristling Hellhound was Dean, cradling Sam's body and trying to talk his brother back into the land of the living.

"Kya!" he yelled, aware of her plight.

"I got it, Dean," she said tersely. "Take care of Sam."

The dog lunged and she whirled, executing a full turn that placed her beside it as it soared through the air toward her. She shot her leg out to the side in a snap-kick as the dog passed, her booted foot connecting firmly with its ribcage. The force of the blow knocked the Hellhound from its leap and into the wall behind it. It got back up, shaking its head and growling fiercely. She spread her legs again in another stance before jerking the arm with the flame outward and sending the flame in an arcing fireball that sprayed the Hellhound. The blow tumbled the dog over again but the flames were harmless. The dog's skin absorbed them as though it was water and shook its body as if to fling off the harmless drops.

With the light from her hand extinguished the hallway grew dark again, save for the beam of light shining from Dean's dropped flashlight. She was completely wrapped in shadow and the dog, with its dark coat, vanished from her line of sight. She stopped and was only able to hear the pounding of her own heartbeat and Dean's plaintive whispering to his brother. She made out the dark shape as it hurtled toward her and felt the pain as jaws clamped down on her arm, head shaking viciously to inflict more damage. She cried out in pain and brought her knee up into the Hellhound's underside until it released its grip. It jumped again, raking claws on her shoulders as it tried to bring her down to the ground again. She stumbled back and jerked the Zippo out again, thumbing down on the striker frantically. The flame sprouted and she focused her eyes on it as it shed a tiny amount of light into the area. She could make out the shape of the dog, huddling some ten feet away. With the lighter in one hand she raised her other hand, repeatedly flinging it outward as fireball after fireball flew down the hallway to collide with or around the dog. The stunning blows were just that, a mere distraction. She edged backward as she kept the balls of flame going.

"Dean!" she cried. "Your gun!"

She dropped the lighter as the sawed off shotgun soared through the air toward her outstretched hand. She caught it deftly, spinning on her heel to face the dog again as it charged at her, and bringing the gun to bear in nearly one neat motion. The butt of it rested on her shoulder and she focused before pulling the trigger. The gun went off, a deafening sound in the cramped space of the hallway, and the force of it knocking the butt back into her shoulder. The bullet caught the hellhound in the chest mid-flight and propelled it ten feet down the hallway to land on the floor.

As she watched the dog dissipated into smoke and disappeared without ever showing a trace that it had been there in the first place. For a moment Kya was so stunned that she remained planted firmly with gun still in her hands, as if she expected it to return or for its cousin to launch itself out of thin air. When no such attack came she lowered the gun slowly before turning around and rushing back to Dean's side.

Dean stared at her from across Sam's body. Sam's breathing had become so labored and shallow that Kya knew immediately they were losing him fast. The only responsiveness he showed was to keep weakly shaking his head in a statement of denial to his dying breath. She met Dean's eyes with intensity.

"Move him, Dean," she commanded.

"What?" he asked.

"Just do it!"

Dean stood and lifted his brother with him, getting the bulk of Sam's body over his shoulder in a fireman carry while he moved down the hallway back the way they had come. Kya stood in front of them, blocking their retreat from anything seeking to follow, and it wasn't long before she felt the slightest of cold chills shuddering through her body. She reached down and snatched up her fallen lighter, struck it, and focused. The flame grew, expanding to a diameter of at least five feet high by four feet wide before she mentally pushed it. The flame roared downward, meeting the carpet and filled the expanse of the hallway. It rushed backward, eating up the space, until a figure was outlined in the midst of it. A woman, stalking closer, suddenly engulfed in the burning flames. She smiled as the flames consumed her, licking at her body, and burning the dress she wore to nothing but ash.

Behind Kya Dean had stopped running and turned around, laying his brother on the ground. He watched as the fire consumed the hallway behind him, climbing up the walls and spreading down from the ceiling until there was nothing left of that expanse of hallway but inferno. In the middle of it stood Jess with a sadistic smile on her face. She disappeared into smoke within the flame and Kya turned to face him.

Behind her the flames went out as suddenly as they had started, whether by Kya or the mansion's will he couldn't tell. She replaced her lighter and walked up to him, kneeling down to gaze at Sam in concern.

His breathing had returned to normal and he began to stir as the two looked on. When he opened his eyes they were both confused and hurt. He looked around, saw Dean and Kya above him, felt his brother's arm holding his upper body off the carpet. Kya's hand rested on his shoulder.

"Jess?" he asked weakly.

"She wasn't real Sam," Dean said firmly. "She was a hallucination of some kind."

"The things she said . . .," Sam started.

"Aren't true," his brother finished.

Sam decided to ignore that and focused instead on Kya. "You're hurt."

"Take a tip from me and don't get into a wrestling match with a dog," she said jokingly. The pain burning in her wounds was sharp, but she didn't want Sam to worry about that right now.

She nodded down the hallway they had come from. "Let's get out of here."

**13**

Back in the foyer Sam was focusing his energy on drawing out a map of the mansion that they had traveled so far. They had stumbled into the archway beside the two hallways to find a sitting room, furnished in red upholstered leather chairs and a couch. The room had been empty of anything of interest save for a silver necklace lying on the floor, nearly hidden under the mahogany scrolled leg of a chair.

Kya held the necklace in her hand as Dean tended to the wound on her other arm with a strip of his shirt that he had torn off from the bottom. His face was set in a grim line as he worked and Kya could tell he had a lot on his mind. The necklace dangling from her fingers was a small chain with a tiny guardian angel on the end. As she held it tears sprang to her eyes and a lump formed in her throat. It was the necklace that she had given Elizabeth at her sweet sixteen. The two girls had gone for a walk in the park after the party and Kya remembered the day clearly. The sun had been setting over the river and they had sat on a pair of swings, idly pushing back and forth. She had given the girl the necklace and proclaimed that now she was becoming a woman and the fun was just starting. Elizabeth had sworn to never take it off and she had upheld that promise, until now.

"There," Dean said, breaking into her reverie. "That should do it."

"Thanks," she said sincerely. She clutched the necklace in her fist. "I'm almost afraid to go down that second hallway."

"No doubt," Dean said darkly.

She looked at him as a shadow crossed his face, a dark cloud of anger that she had never seen before. His eyes glittered in the light of the candles still warmly glowing in the foyer with an intensity that almost scared her. The clownish, womanizing, playful side of Dean had all but vanished with the last incident involving his brother and in his place stood a man ready to defend against the darkness with his dying breath. Kya felt sorry for whatever tried to come between Dean and his brother a second time.

"Finished," Sam called from his own place of concentration. "Now hopefully we can keep track of this place."

He handed Dean the map as he rose to his feet, steady again. The color in his face had returned and to the casual observer it seemed as if the close call with death had never occurred. But Kya could see the pain still buried in the younger boy's eyes and she wished she could take it away. The burden was Sam's to bear, however, and he would have to find the strength to overcome it on his own.

Dean scanned the map and nodded. "I'm really starting to hate this freak show. But I have to ask, which way now?"

"I think we should finish the foyer so we don't have to keep coming back here. We still have the hallway and those two arches over there. We should save upstairs for later, when we're done here," Kya said reasonably.

"Don't forget those two doors behind the stairs," Sam added.

"This is going to take forever," Dean groaned.

"I say the two arches," Sam said.

Without waiting for agreement he lifted the backpack onto his back and started toward the archway on the right side of the room with purpose. Kya and Dean hurried to match his pace and their flashlights landed in a room filled with the heads of hunting trophies. On one wall rested at least ten buck heads of varying sizes, on another were more exotic catches including the double tusks of an elephant, the pelt of a tiger, and the head of a grizzly bear, among other things. The far wall housed guns of all shapes and sizes hanging in racks against the pale tan of the walls. The floor was wood and a carpet of a huge grizzly bear pelt softened their footfalls as they maneuvered past more leather chairs seated in a circle around an oak end-table. Another stone fireplace rested in front of the chairs on the wall that displayed the exotic trophies and there was wood ready to burn inside the mesh covering.

Dean swung his flashlight around the room and jumped back, colliding with Kya. She reached her hands out to steady him and looked to where he pointed the beam of the Mag-Lite.

Standing in a corner, staring at one of the trophies, was a young man. Even from the back it was easy to tell that he was not of the living; his body was transparent and the threesome could see that his head hung against his shoulder at a sharp angle. His neck had been completely snapped. The man seemed to realize that he was not alone in the room and he turned around slowly. His eyes were light brown and his hair sandy blonde. He wore jeans and a white shirt complete with worn brown leather cowboy boots. Kya was distracted by the way his right temple rested against the top of his shoulder as if he had been born that way. But that was not the case. He had died that way.

"I can't find my way out," the ghost said plaintively.

"I'm sorry," Sam offered.

"If you got in, there must be a way out," he said.

Kya sighed. He didn't realize he was dead.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Dean asked carefully.

"I remember coming into this room," he said, face screwing up into thought. "But after that, nothing. Just that I can't find the way out."

"What's your name?" Kya asked gently.

"Jesse," the kid said, as an afterthought he added, "I just turned eighteen. Goin' to college."

Kya's heart wrenched. Here was yet another life stolen away by evil. It got to her each time.

"Jesse," Sam said, stepping to the front of the group. "I hate to tell you this, buddy, but you're dead."

"Sam!" Kya gasped. "Couldn't you use a little more tact?"

"How can you use tact?" Dean demanded. "It's the truth."

"I'm what?" Jesse asked, voice breaking. "That can't be right. You're lying."

"No Jesse," Kya said quietly. "I wish we were. You must not have made it very far into the mansion."

"I just wanted to go home!" he cried. "This place . . .this place plays foolery on you! I can't be dead. I was goin' to college!"

Kya hung her head and found Dean's hand for reassurance. He squeezed it gently.

"We're telling you the truth," Sam said firmly. "You don't belong here, Jesse. You need to move on and let go of this place."

The ghost was quiet for several minutes, seeming to think about what they had said. Finally he looked up, a mixture of pain and clarity washing over his translucent features. "I suppose you're right. I've got this god-awful headache that won't go away. I've been a wonderin' why I keep going in circles. My Ma, and my Grammy, they're waiting for me up in Heaven," he said in a broken tone.

Sam nodded encouragingly. "You should go to them. They want to see you again."

The ghost nodded and waved at them in a goodbye motion. As he seemed to focus, to let go of the plane he was trapped on, his body disappeared for one fraction of a second before reappearing.

"What is it?" Dean asked.

"I'm still here?" the ghost asked in confusion.

Kya cast a sidelong glance at Sam. The brown haired young man was shaking his head and staring at the floor with lips pursed in contemplation. Dean looked to his younger brother for a theory.

"I think we have a problem," Sam said finally. "I think this place is throwing out the bodies and keeping the souls trapped here. I've heard some legends say that the souls of people can act as batteries in a sense. It could be that Colton uses them to keep this place going and to establish his link with the book back in the real world. He's not going to let them cross over."

"So if we kill Colton," Dean stopped suddenly, then added, "Again. If we kill him again then we set all these souls free that he's collected?"

Kya nodded, her eyes falling on the forlorn ghost with more than a passing wave of sympathy. "That sounds plausible."

"I'm sorry, Jesse," Sam said sincerely. "We'll get you out of here but you have to wait here."

The ghost nodded and went back to staring at the trophy on the wall without a word. Dean's eyes met both of his companions with a determined glare of anger that startled both Kya and Sam.

"Let's go get this bastard."


	9. Chapter 14

**14**

The kitchen was huge. Mahogany paneled cabinets and a walk in pantry the size of Kya's bedroom back home, complete with three sinks for washing dishes. Kya could almost imagine the use it would have been put to, the smell of turkey in the air at Thanksgiving dinners. Behind her Sam walked around the dining room in a separate room, although slightly visible from the kitchen. He had been quiet ever since the encounter with both Jess and the ghost. She imagined there was a lot on his mind that he needed to come to terms with. Personally she was having trouble dealing with Jesse and the fact that now he would never be going to college.

She knew there was a balance in life. Her martial arts training had taught her that. The balance of good and evil were necessary enemies. Without evil there could be no good and vice versa. What she hated was that evil had to claim so much innocence for its own. She leaned against the kitchen counter and stared at the tile top.

She was beginning to understand the mansion and how it worked. She wondered how far other people had gotten in it and whether or not there were any survivors still wandering the halls. The way she understood it this house acted on psychological terror as well as physical. The specifics were still lost on her but if Sam had seen his dead girlfriend it meant that the mansion was able to conjure up ghosts of painful memories. What else could the thing conjure? Her stomach turned at the thought.

Her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of labored breathing coming down a hallway to her right that led away from the kitchen and into some other part of the house they hadn't explored yet. She pushed off from the counter and called to the boys before a figure exploded into the kitchen. Kya jumped back before she realized that it was a young girl.

"Holy crap!" she cried.

The girl was stumbling, falling several times, before getting back up and running on. She collapsed in Kya's arms who had run to stand in front of her. The girl had a mop of unruly black hair that fell to her shoulders. Her clothes were torn and bloodstained in so many places that Kya couldn't count them all. Her wrists were abraded to the point of raw skin and blood and Kya imagined they had been caused by bonds of some kind. Her face was bleeding from a cut on her cheek and forehead. There was another nasty cut on her shoulder and the girl was clutching at her thigh as she stumbled.

"Help me," she moaned. "Please don't let him take me again. Help me!"

"Who are you talking about? What did this to you?" Kya demanded as the boys came running up behind her.

"Jesus Christ," Dean said, having nothing else to say.

"That crazy bastard," she gasped. "There's a basement . . . .I got away."

The girl's ranting was interrupted by another figure exploding into the kitchen. Kya wrapped her arms around the girl and pulled her backward, narrowly avoiding the swing of a wickedly sharp knife. Kya didn't have enough time to make out the face of the madman before she felt Dean's hands shoving against her backside.

"Run!" he yelled. "Get her out of here!"

Kya pulled the girl through the doorway that led into the kitchen, appearing in the foyer again. She looked around frantically and made out the sound of a muffled groan from the kitchen followed by a crash.

Dean held the shotgun up and fired at the man, but the shot went wide and missed. He was barreled into and went crashing into the cabinets, causing the dishes inside to rattle precariously. Dean was forced to drop the shotgun as the knife came up to hover near his throat. He grabbed the man's arm and pushed back, trying to keep the knife at bay. This close he could make out long dark brown hair, tattered clothing, and a disfigured face. He thought that he had seen this guy in some movie or another but he was a disadvantage to be thinking of such things.

"Sam!" he yelled.

Dean's back was being grinded against the counter as he was bent over backward to avoid the knife and from the pressure of the man leaning in to stab him to death. The man went stumbling back as his brother hit him over the head with an iron pot. Dean stumbled away from the counter toward his brother.

The man came at them again, not fazed much by the blow of the pot, and wrapped an arm around Dean's throat. He yelled as the blade buried in his shoulder, right above his heart.

"Dean!" Sam yelled.

He wrenched his brother from the madman's grasp and Dean fell back against the cabinets, sliding to the floor. He gasped in pain as sweat poured down his brow. Blood leaked from the stab wound and he gripped the hilt of the knife with shaking fingers.

Kya pulled the girl farther into the foyer. She could hear the sounds of battle behind her but couldn't risk leaving the injured girl alone. It was up to her to keep her safe in this madhouse. She had to trust that the brothers could hold their own against a knife-wielding maniac.

"Come on," Kya urged. "This way!"

Kya dragged the girl up the first few stairs before the girl collapsed, unable to go much further. Kya knelt down, repeatedly glancing over her shoulder for attacks, while she gave the girl a cursory glance over. She had been through some kind of hell. Her injuries were many but Kya immediately made out the source of the girl's inability to properly walk. There was a stab wound in her right thigh that was so deep it must have penetrated all the way to the bone. Blood leaked from it at an astonishing pace. Kya ripped off a piece of her shirt and quickly tied it around the wound like a tourniquet.

"You're gonna be okay," she said quietly. "What's your name?"

"H . . .Heather," the girl said.

"I'm Kya. But we have to keep moving," she replied.

"I . . .I can't," Heather stammered.

"Yes you can," Kya told her firmly. She wrapped an arm around the girl's waist and lifted her up, supporting the vast majority of her body weight as they climbed the stairs too slowly for Kya's taste. She was so focused on keeping the girl and herself on the stairs that she never saw the blow come. Heather screamed as Kya tumbled down the stairs to land on the tile foyer floor at the bottom. The injured, frightened girl looked down helplessly at the unmoving woman at the bottom of the stairs and back up at her attacker.

"Please don't kill me," she begged.


	10. Chapters 15 and 16

**15**

Sam tackled the madman while Dean labored to pull the knife from his shoulder. Once it was out he unsteadily got to his feet, one hand clutching the wound where blood leaked between his fingers and rushed over to his brother, who was in the middle of a wrestling match with the crazy man. He had his hands wrapped around Sammy's throat in a death grip. Two tears from strain were hovering at the corners of his eyes as he kicked his feet uselessly and attempted to loosen the grip.

Dean stood behind the man, raised the blood, and plunged it into the back of his neck. Sam was startled when it exploded from his throat, silver tip stained red. The blood oozed off the knife and dripped onto Sam's chest as the man dissipated into smoke with a final grunt.

Sam lay there, sucking in oxygen before Dean reached a hand down and pulled his brother to his feet. Sam moved Dean's hand to look at the wound, which wasn't as deep as he had originally thought. Sam snatched a towel off the counter and pressed it to the wound.

"That was close," he commented.

"I wonder how many more knife wielding freaks are in here," Dean said dryly.

"I don't know," Sam answered. "But we have to find the girls."

They bolted from the kitchen, the adrenaline rush passing, and found the injured girl on the stairs in the foyer. Dean glanced around but there was no sign of Kya anywhere visible. Sam took the stairs two at a time and the girl was so startled by him she let out a scream. Sam eased back, holding his hands out as if to show he had no weapons.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said gently. "What's your name?"

"Heather," she said softly.

Dean approached and was startled when Heather backpedaled up the stairs in fright. "Please don't hurt me!"

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said firmly. "Where's Kya?"

Heather looked at him in bewilderment. Her eyebrows drew together over her eyes as she stared at him. "You should know," she said accusingly.

Sam kneeled down in front of her. "What are you talking about?"

"He should know!" she cried. "He took her."

Sam stared at her in astonishment. She was accusing Dean of kidnapping Kya, when his brother had been with him the whole time. It wasn't possible. He turned to his brother, who was crouching down at the bottom of the stairs where a few drops of blood were all that was left as evidence that Kya had been there. Dean bit his lower lip and when he looked up there was rage evident on his features.

"Somebody that looks like me," he said tightly. "Who does that remind you of?"

"The shape shifter you killed," Sam said, recognition dawning on him.

"That bastard was created by the house," Dean said tightly. "And now he's got Kya."

When Kya came to her senses her head ached dully and she could feel dried blood at her hairline. The world slowly came back to her, and then she realized that she still couldn't see. She realized that a blindfold was covering her eyes and a thick strip of cloth was pressed against her mouth, tied securely behind her head. She could hear somebody walking around the room and she slowly tried to move her limbs, suspecting already that she wouldn't be able to.

She was in a high back wooden chair, and her arms were pressed against the arm rests. Her wrists had been secured with rope to them tightly enough to make them go numb and her feet were in the same predicament, tightly bound to the legs of the chair at the front. She felt the cool air brushing against her shoulders and realized that her leather jacket was no longer covering her.

She jumped when a hand touched the side of her face, trailing down her shoulder. Without meaning to her breathing quickened, her heart pounding in her ears. Terror clouded her judgment and her thoughts became muddled with it.

"I'll give him credit for one thing," a familiar voice said. "He sure knows how to pick the pretty ones."

She nearly started crying. She recognized that voice. It was Dean's.

Dean slammed a fist against the wall on the far side of the room. It broke through the plaster and he sat there, shoulders heaving as he breathed hard in his rage. He pulled his fist free and the moment that it was out the house stitched the broken wall back together. Sam stared at it in amazement before turning back to his volatile brother.

"Dean," he said carefully. "We'll get her back."

"Yeah," Dean said scornfully. "In how many pieces?"

"Dean!" Sam cried. "You can't think like that."

"You know him! You know how he works. He took her as bait, sure, but he's going to have his fun while he's at it. You know that as well as I do. And this place is huge. How are we supposed to find her before he does too much harm?" Dean seethed.

Sam was at a loss. "I don't know. I just know we'll find her, and put him out of his misery. Again."

"I appreciate your faith," Dean said tiredly. "But I just don't see how we're going to find her in time. He won't hesitate to kill her. As long as we think he's got her alive, he knows we'll come looking."

"So we'll go looking. And we'll find her. And we'll give him an eye for an eye and all that," Sam said firmly. "But we're wasting time. We have to start looking."

Both men were startled by a thin voice that spoke from behind them, that didn't belong to Heather. The girl was still crying on the stairs.

"I think I can help you with that."

**16**

Kya was numb. She floated somewhere between consciousness and blackness, drifting in a void that her mind had created for the sole purpose of taking her away from the pain. She couldn't tell long she had been in the room with her attacker; the part of her that was still aware enough to think reasoned that he couldn't possibly be Dean. It must be the house, playing another hideous trick on her. But all the same it was his voice floating toward her in the void, his voice that penetrated the darkness she had imposed on herself.

"He'll come for you," the voice said with confidence. "He'll come and I will have my revenge."

She pushed herself away from the voice mentally, trying to outdistance the throbbing, burning pain. She could feel the warmth on her limbs from the dozens of cuts he had inflicted with a knife. Her blood ran like rivers down her skin and her throat was raw from the screaming that she had done. It hadn't done her any good. Her screams had not been cries for help, or to get the attention of anybody nearby, they had been merely an outlet for her pain. The pain as the knife raked into her flesh had been more than she could hold in, no matter how much she gritted her teeth through the gag. For every time she played it strong he dug in a little deeper. Every time she failed to flinch he tried a little harder.

Her blindfold was soaked with both sweat and tears. She was fairly certain she had lost at least two shades of color in her skin, and her hair hung limply around her face, damp from the salty water her skin produced in accordance with her body's stress. Her body shook visibly, trembling from weakness, from fear, and from pain. She was drifting away; drifting into the safety of darkness.

Her tormentor had not been satisfied with knife play, however. Eventually he had grown bored with it, and moved on to better things. At least in his demented world. Kya could feel the blood seeping between her fingers, dripping onto her jeans, from where he had driven two large nails through the middle of her hands, staking them to the wood beneath. She had screamed for that. She had screamed and thrashed in the chair, nearly knocking it over, and all she got for her effort was a vicious backhand that left her ears ringing, a large bruise, and a bloody nose. He had moved on to shove more nails in her legs, two in each calf, penetrating deep into the muscle.

She could hear him walking around the room now, moving things around, metal ringing on metal, while he hummed a chipper song to himself that she couldn't recognize. Inside herself, Kya drifted.

Dean turned toward the sound of the voice. A young woman hovered a few inches off the floor in front of him, plainly incorporeal, dressed in straight legged jeans and a white blouse. Her hair was pulled back in a braid and her eyes framed by glasses with slender silver frames. She had the appearance of a studious woman, quiet and reserved, an introvert who lived in a world apart from the rest of humanity. The only evidence of her death lie in the horrendous cuts that marked her body and Dean remembered her from the crime scene photos he had looked at with Sam.

"Elizabeth," he said.

"I couldn't make it out of here," she told them quietly. "But you can't let this place take my cousin too."

"You said you could help us," Sam said, pulling her back on topic.

The ghost nodded. "I know where he has her. He's waiting for you."

She looked pointedly at Dean. Then she glanced to where Heather had curled up on the stairs, rocking and back and forth and singing softly to herself. Elizabeth had pity in her eyes.

"You can't leave her alone," the ghost stated. "The house will take her at the first chance it gets. One way or another."

Sam nodded. "She'll stay with us."

Elizabeth shook her head. "The foyer is the only safe place in here. The lights, they ward off what lurks in the rest of the house. The rooms off to the side, they aren't safe. But the foyer is. Stay here with her. I'll show Dean where to go."

Sam shook his head vehemently. "No. I'm not losing my brother."

"You won't," she said sternly. "I'll take him there and back. That's all I can do. But if you bring the girl, you could all get killed. She's not strong enough to make it and she will only be a burden."

"She's right Sam," Dean said. "Heather needs to stay here where it's safe and heal a little bit before we drag her with us. I can handle my evil twin."

Sam sighed and looked to the stairs. "All right. But come back as soon as you can. I'm not waiting for long."

Dean turned to the ghost. "Show me."

Elizabeth nodded and led the way.

"So pretty," the Dean-look alike stated. "But beauty is a fleeting thing. Girls like you, they think they're too good for me. Too good to love a monster."

Kya was startled when he ripped off the gag. She was too weak to open her mouth, not that it would have done her much good. Her jaws ached from the pressure of the gag and her throat burned from her efforts at unleashing her agony upon the sound waves of the world. She had no idea what he was talking about, but that didn't stop him from venting.

"People like you," he went on, his tone dangerously quiet. "All they ever did was cause me pain. So now I'm returning the favor. Hold still. This might hurt, a little."

He seized her jaw in strong hands, forcing her face up. In the back of her mind, where she still clung to the waking world, she wondered what in the hell he was going to do now. She was so past the point of pain that it didn't seem to matter anymore.

"Okay," he admitted. "I lied. This will hurt a lot."

As she felt the sewing needle pierce the flesh of her lips, drawing a line of thread through with the first puncture, she realized belatedly that she had been wrong. She wasn't past the point of pain, at least not yet. For the first time in her life, Kya prayed for death.


	11. Chapter 17

**17**

The ghost of Elizabeth had lead Dean through a twisting maze of hallways upstairs, past countless doors, before coming to a stop in front of one. Dean was glad that she had come to lead the way; he knew it would have been hours before he found it on his own. His hear trip hammered as he thought about how long it had taken already, and the damage that could have already been done.

"This is it," Elizabeth said, her voice a soft whisper in the hallway that barely reached his ears. "I'll wait here for you to take you back. The rest is up to you."

Dean nodded, not wanting to give himself away, and readied the shotgun in his hands. He thought about simply opening the door, but his anger boiled inside him, taking control, and he kicked out a foot in full rage to send the door flying inward in a shatter of wooden shards.

When he entered the room he wasn't surprised to find himself looking at himself. The shape shifter turned, obviously surprised at the dramatic entrance, but not shocked that the man he had been waiting for had finally arrived.

"Ah," he said happily. "You finally made it."

"You're gonna wish I hadn't," Dean grated. "You give my face a bad name."

The shape shifter shook his head and tsked softly. Dean's eyes drifted behind him to where Kya sat, bound and blindfolded in a chair. It took him a minute to realize why she wasn't speaking. Her lips had been sewn shut with thin black thread. The false Dean saw him staring and stepped back to let Dean view his full work proudly.

"I think it's the best work I've done so far," he admitted.

Dean wracked his brain for a sharp retort, ending with a simple, "I'm gonna kill you."

"You already did," came the reply.

"Well I'll make sure to do it right this time."

The shape shifter lunged at him with a scalpel in one hand before Dean could make his move, slicing into his shoulder. Dean accepted the stinging blow and turned with his rush, bringing the butt of his gun to connect solidly with the back of the shape shifter's head. His enemy stumbled but remained upright, turning to face Dean with a hungry glare in his eyes.

"You'll have to do better that that," he said smugly.

"You don't have to tell me twice," Dean shot back.

The impostor lunged again, knocking Dean to the floor and causing him to lose his weapon. Dean struggled, putting both hands on his attacker's shoulders, rolling him until Dean had the advantage. He brought his fist down hard, punching himself in the face until blood stained his hand. He got up and brought his booted foot into the shape shifter's ribcage, kicking until he heard the ribs snap.

"I'll kill you," the shape shifter grunted through clenched teeth.

Dean smirked and picked up the shotgun again. "Promises, promises."

He blew a hole into the impostor's knee, not wanting to kill him just yet. The shape shifter howled and clutched at his blasted kneecap, writhing on the floor in agony. Dean grabbed him by the hair, hauling him to his feet and slamming him against the wall.

"You think that hurts," he growled. "You should stay for the after-party."

Dean let go, letting his rage loose, and when he was done he had grinded the thing's face into an unrecognizable pulp with his fist. He stepped back and let him drop to the floor. Dean crouched down, one foot on his back, his hands holding the shotgun steady at the back of the shape shifter's head.

"This time," he said firmly. "Stay dead."

Dean fired and blood spattered outward, hitting his face, shoulders, and chest. For a moment all he could was sit there and breathe hard before his anger began to ebb away and he came back to himself. The thing that had stolen his face lay dead beneath him, an unmoving bloody mass before it vanished into smoke like everything else the house conjured up.

Dean set the gun down and rushed to the chair. He slid the blindfold from Kya's eyes, and when they came into focus he could read the raw fear in them.

"It's okay," he said quickly. "It's me."

He pulled a pocket knife from his jeans and sawed through the ropes that bound her wrists to the armrests. Underneath lay raw, bleeding skin from fierce abrasion. He gritted his teeth, anger washing through him again, when he saw the thick nails embedded in her hands. He cupped her chin his palm, tilting her head upwards, and placed the tip of the knife against the first of the stitches holding her lips together.

"Hold still," he said softly.

She winced as he sliced through. When her lips were freed he went to work on the ropes on her ankles, discovering four more nails pushed deep into her calves.

"Dean," she whispered.

Her voice was raw and hoarse, barely audible even in the quiet of the room. His throat tightened at the plaintive sound of it, until the muscles in his neck twitched. He wished that he had made the bastard suffer more, but he was dead and that was all that mattered.

"It's okay," he said again, as reassuringly as he could. "I'm sorry but this is going to hurt."

He steeled himself and yanked out the nails, each one bringing forth a cry of pain from Kya. He moved to the ones in her hands, pulling them out in one swift motion. As soon as they were free he tore off strips from the sheet on the bed in the room, winding them around her bleeding hands and legs.

Kya brought a shaking hand to her lips and tore out the thread. Tiny beads of blood pooled from dozens of puncture marks and Dean dabbed at them with his own shirt. He stopped and met her eyes, but only for a second. He was unable to hold the look.

"God," he said brokenly. "I'm so sorry. I should have gotten here sooner."

She reached a hand up to his face and brushed it against his jaw gently. "You got here. That's all that matters."

He caught the hand, brought it to his lips and kissed it gently before leaning in to kiss her forehead. The thought occurred to him to kiss more than that, but he brushed it aside in favor of getting the hell out of dodge.

Elizabeth looked at him as he emerged from the room with Kya cradled tightly in his arms. She nodded once, as if to say that he had done well, before beckoning for him to follow once again.

In his arms, Kya buried her head in his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck. Even though she was safe, the pain still plagued her body, and the fear still remained wrapped around her like a shroud. She was strong, but there were some things that brought even the strongest of mortals to their knees. This was one of those things.

Dean held her even more tightly, understanding completely, when he felt her tears cling to his shirt and spread through the fabric, permeating more than just the cotton he wore. They dug all the way to his heart.


	12. Chapter 18

**18**

Kya woke sometime a few hours later and found herself wrapped in Dean's arms. The tile floor beneath her had grown warm from their body heat and the candles produced a soft glow around the room. She had to admit that in this room alone she felt safe, but it she felt even safer in Dean's arms. Her body was turned to the side, melding with his, and her head on his shoulder. He had one arm wrapped around her neck, resting across her shoulder and the other crossed over his chest to keep hold of her arm. She raised her own hand up from his chest the few inches and took his hand gently. His grip suggested that he was afraid to let her go again.

When they had arrived back in the foyer he had been distant and brooding; she guessed he was blaming himself for what had happened to her. She knew that it wasn't his fault but it would take him time to realize the same thing. He was sleeping now and she didn't want to wake him. They had decided that they all needed to rest, give their bodies time to heal and recharge before they had another go at the house. Across the way Sam and Heather were sleeping. They were facing the same direction, Sam's arm under her head and his arm wrapped protectively around her waist. One of her small hands was laced with the one around her waist and they were both sleeping soundly.

Kya eased herself out carefully from Dean's grip and stood slowly, stretching her aching muscles. A dull pain shot through her legs where the needles had been buried and her hands ached beneath the white bandages wound tightly around them. Her lips were sore, slightly swollen, and she could feel the bruise on her face throbbing dully. She turned around and spotted Elizabeth's ghost, looking toward the stairs as she hovered off the ground. She must have stayed to watch over them.

"Hey," Kya said gently, coming up beside her cousin.

"Hi," Elizabeth said sadly. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been run over by a truck," she replied.

Elizabeth nodded. "I guess that sounds about right."

"Look, Elly," Kya started, her voice on the verge of breaking. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't save you."

Elizabeth finally turned to face the older girl. "It's not your fault, Kya. I guess this was my destiny."

"No," Kya said firmly. "It couldn't have been. You had so much left. . . ."

"If it wasn't meant to be, then it wouldn't have happened. I'm okay with that, as long as you get me out of here so I can go wherever I'm supposed to be." Her cousin ended with a smile and Kya felt her heart breaking.

She reached a hand up and touched Elizabeth's face, but her hand passed right through. A single tear trailed down her face and she bit back the sob threatening to break forth. She stared hard at the floor when a gentle hand touched her face. She looked up through shimmering eyes to see Elizabeth standing there, shy and beautiful. Without questioning how her cousin had corporealized she let out a choked sob and drew the girl into her arms. Elizabeth closed her arms tightly around Kya and they stood there together under the lights of a thousand candles, both their tears mingling together as they cried.

Dean rolled over slightly, feeling the warmth of Kya's body gone, and opened his eyes to see her standing near the foot of the stairs, wrapped in her cousin's arms. A small smile crossed his face as he watched the two girls. He could see how much they had loved each other as more than cousins, more like sisters, evident in everything they did. It was obvious to him that Kya had downplayed the loss of Elizabeth in front of him and Sam. Dean took in her appearance, the way her blonde hair was lit in a dozen places by the candlelight. Her jeans were torn and dirty, bloodstained and frayed, her black halter top was still in one piece and the leather jacket she wore over it was torn on the shoulders from the Hellhound's claws. Even bruised and broken she stood strong, taller than she should have appeared even in her heeled boots. Somehow the tears staining her face, the moment of weakness she displayed for Elizabeth, made him think of her as all the more strong and all the more beautiful.

His thought process caught him by surprise. He had never really had deep feelings for any girl, just a passing desire to ease loneliness. Dean had never thought about finding a girl of his own as Sam had done. The light in which he was seeing Kya had nothing to do with the candles.

"I get to be an angel," Elizabeth whispered, her mouth pressed against Kya's hair.

"Yeah," Kya said. "You do."

Ever since they were kids Elizabeth had been fascinated with angels. It had been her dream to be one, a guardian angel in particular, and the thought had given her comfort concerning death. Kya knew that her cousin was looking forward to fulfilling her childhood dream, but Kya wasn't ready to let her cousin go anywhere, including to get wings. She didn't want to let go even though she knew that she had to.

"It's okay," Elizabeth said. "I want to go. I want wings."

Kya laughed and pulled away. "You'll look beautiful in them."

"You think?" Elizabeth asked. "I hope so. I want to do good with them. Save somebody else that can do good in the world."

Kya smile was sad through the tears still sliding down her face. "Well you're off to a good start. You saved me."

Elizabeth laughed. "I did, huh? I guess I did. That's new."

It was Kya's turn to laugh and swipe at the tears blurring her vision. "A good kind of new. I could learn to get used to it."

Elizabeth took her hand for the last time. "I'll watch over you. I promise. When I get out of here, I'll stay with you. If you can stand to have me around for the rest of your life."

Kya squeezed the girl's hand before it turned incorporeal again. She looked at her cousin and saw the wall behind her. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

A few minutes later Kya came back to Dean, sliding easily back into position as though she had never left. As her head touched his chest and the curtain of blonde locks brushed his face he smiled and wrapped his arms around her. It felt natural to have her lying in his arms in a way that no other woman had come close to feeling. Even Cassie, for all of their passion and heat, had never felt the way that holding Kya did. She turned her face up to look at him, sensing that he was no longer sleeping.

"You were watching us," she said with mock accusation.

"Guilty," he admitted. "And how does the jury find the defendant?"

She wrinkled her nose and stifled a laugh. "Guilty as charged. With a verdict of time served."

Dean nodded, as if mulling over the decision. "I guess that's not so bad."

Kya wrapped an arm around his waist, feeling the muscles beneath his shirt that remained firm even though he was relaxed. "Not so bad at all."

Dean sat up on one elbow suddenly and she rested her head on his bicep as he leaned over her. His eyes searched hers, staring at her directly for the first time since he had found her in the chair. There was still guilt shrouded in those green orbs, but it was diminishing.

"Kya?" he asked softly.

"Yes, Dean?" she replied.

He bent low and encased her mouth with his, words lost on him. He had meant to tell her how he felt but Dean had always been a man of action instead of words. She seemed surprised by the sudden kiss, but reciprocated it with equal care and passion. He was mindful of the condition of her lips, being gentle because he wasn't aware that at that very moment, Kya cared very little about her pain. His strong arms wrapped around her small frame and she pressed herself to him, lost in the deep and passionate kiss. Her thoughts blurred until she felt nothing but him and the kiss deepened, became more passion filled and hungry.

Elizabeth turned away with a smile on her ghostly features, her cousin the firestarter and the demon hunter locked in each other's embrace.


	13. Chapters 19 and 20

**19**

"So," Sam said, shoving a fern out of his path. "How much of this hell hole have you been through?"

Elizabeth turned slightly, floating right through an outreaching rose bush. "Not much."

The four living beings and the singe ghost had decided to take the more direct route through the gardens that stretched through the middle of the house. A glass covering soared overhead, filtering what should have been sunlight but was instead roiling thunderheads. The path they were on wound its way through the garden, a massive place filled with every type of flower and vegetation imaginable, from fruit plants to exotic flowers. Space in between were beautiful fountains and statues of angels, cherubs, animals, Greek goddesses and gods, among other things. With the exception of the sky overhead threatening to rain fury down upon their heads if it could break through the thin glass barrier, Sam found the garden to be peaceful. Heather's small hand was wrapped in his as she trailed behind him, picking her way past some of the thornier species of plant that had overgrown onto the path.

"Shoulda brought a machete," Dean grumbled, swatting aside a branch.

"Oh enjoy it," Kya said. "Unless the tomato monster attacks, I feel okay here."

"Tomato monster?" Dean responded incredulously. "You can't be serious."

Heather laughed. Sam tightened his hand around hers. He in no way felt for her what he had for Jessica. All the same he felt it was now his duty to make sure she stayed alive and she wasn't an unattractive girl. She was small, about 5'3" with raven black hair that curled in loose waves around her face, touching the tips of her shoulders. Her eyes were dark brown and her skin a golden brown, the color of brown sugar. She was Hispanic by heritage and her voice held the slightest trace of the accent that went with the heritage, leading Sam to believe she was fluent in both Spanish and English. She really was a beautiful girl but Sam couldn't bring himself to get past his broken heart. At the moment he was just enjoying the feeling of having a hand in his own and somebody to look out for other than his brother.

He listened to his brother and Kya continue their conversation about the likelihood of there actually being a Tomato Monster and smiled to himself. It was the first time in a long time that he had seen Dean actually content with his world and he didn't want his brother to lose that. Despite the fact that his own love life was in shambles, mostly due to himself not being able to let go of Jessica, he wanted his brother to find happiness.

They came to the center of the gardens where a circular clearing had opened up, lined with blossoming rose bushed of all colors. In the center of the clearing was a huge fountain of stone, four tiered, and spouting clear water down the sides. At the top was an angel, wings outspread and face tilted toward the sky above with a look of serenity and wisdom plastered for eternity on its stone features.

Elizabeth held out a ghostly arm to tell the others to cease walking. "I feel something."

"Must be the tomato monster," Dean said under his breath.

His joke was broken by a ghostly man that stepped out from the rose bushes, passing right through them. Kya gasped, jumping back. She recognized the facial features, the startling blue eyes, the stern jaw and thin nose. She had seen them before on someone much younger.

"Colton!" she exclaimed, causing both the boys to fall into defensive postures.

Dean withdrew a gun and aimed it with one arm while holding Kya back with the other. Sam stepped up beside his brother in much the same manner, pushing Heather behind him to shield her with his own larger frame.

Elizabeth hovered off to the side, anger stamped across her features.

"We've been looking for you," Dean grated.

The ghost held up his hands as if to ward them off. "I know. I was waiting. Hoping you would find me."

Dean cocked his head to the side, looking past the gun to the man's face in puzzlement. "What the hell are you talking about? Why would you want us to find you?"

"Please, it's not what you think. Put the gun down and let me explain."

Dean looked at Sam and Kya who returned the gesture with a shrug from each of them. Dean lowered the gun slowly but kept it in his hand. He nodded to the ghost of Colton Banks to start speaking.

"I can't leave this garden," Colton said slowly. "If I do the house will consume it like it has everything else. I've been able to keep this place and the foyer safe, but that's as far as my energy will go."

Kya shook her head, confused.

"It wasn't me who put a curse on the book. I created this piece of fiction for the sole purpose of good writing but it proved to be my doom. I've been trapped here ever since my death, unable to move on."

"I don't understand," Sam said in frustration. "If it's not you then who is it?"

Colton looked at them gravely. "My son. Hunter."

"Hunter?" Kya exclaimed.

"Yes. When I died unjustly he was so angered at the town for their betrayal of me that he used dark magic to curse the last legacy of my life. It's his anger and power that keeps this place running. My brother has never been able to find a cure for his bloodlust. He wanted the book for himself, so that he could use it to devise even more fiendish ways to kill," Colton looked sadly at Elizabeth. "That's how you were killed, my dear. Jason learned that the book was in your possession and he killed you for it. Only it wasn't there."

Elizabeth stared at the ground as Kya pushed past Dean to stare hard at the man. "How do you know all of this?"

Colton motioned toward the water that stood in the bottom tier of the fountain, about three feet deep. "I can see into your world through the water's reflection when the sun shines. Which isn't very often. Only when I can outdo my son's will and take over control of this place for an instant. Hunter thinks that vengeance is what I want. He can't hear me from here so he doesn't know how I feel."

Dean shook his head. "Would it change anything if he did?"

Colton looked away sadly. "Probably not. My son is consumed by anger for what the town did. In his eyes they stole his father away. The real killer walked free. He was killed years later when the town turned on him."

"We know all of that," Kya told him. "Why can't the people that die here move on?"

"Hunter uses the power in their souls to help him power the place. They can't move on until the book is destroyed, breaking the curse."

Dean scoffed. "Now why didn't we just burn the damn thing?"

Sam ignored his brother's rhetorical question. "How do we get out of here?"

Colton shook his head. "I wish I knew."

**20**

Dean sighed and ran his hands through his air, finally replacing the gun that he had pulled on Colton. Kya watched him pace back and forth while she stood next to Heather near the fountain.

"You're telling me that we're stuck here?" Dean demanded finally.

"Not exactly," the ghost corrected. "I'm telling you that if there is a way out, I don't know what it is."

Elizabeth shook her own ghostly head. "I haven't been here long but I know that most of the people who get in here don't get back out alive."

"That's very comforting, thanks," Dean said sarcastically.

"Dean," Sam said sternly, "It's not there fault. We got ourselves into this mess now we're just gonna have to find the way out."

Another explosively agitated sigh from Dean. "I know that Sammy. But as many times as we've come close to being sliced and diced in this madhouse, I'm wondering if we'll be living long enough to accomplish that."

Colton shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry. I never meant for all of this to happen."

"It's not your fault," Heather said, finally speaking up. "You didn't know any of this would happen."

Kya nodded her agreement. Her brain was working overtime, trying to figure out the most likely way to escape from this place. Originally they thought that if they found and destroyed Colton's ghost then that would set them free. That was no longer the case. Their must be some other power source from within the book, something that they had overlooked. She turned away from the fountain to stare out over the gardens, thinking back on everything she had seen and discovered since starting this case.

After wracking her brain she had still come up empty on ideas, before Heather put a hand on her arm.

"Call me stupid," she said hesitantly. "But if Hunter is keeping this place going, then wouldn't he have a way to find out what's going on inside the book?"

Kya turned a startled look on the younger girl. "You could be onto something. Even if he does, though, I don't see how that's going to get us out of here. He's probably laughing at us right now."

"I think I might know something that could help," Elizabeth said, coming to join the other two girls. "Colton wrote the book, but obviously when Hunter put the curse on it, he changed what was written. Colton's words are no longer relevant to what's happening here. But I remember reading a page from the original version for a research project at school, and it said something about a tower."

Kya turned abruptly to face Colton. "Did you write about a tower in the original version of this story?"

"Why, yes," he said, caught off guard. "It was the final stage, the climax of the story. The tower housed the mansion's guardian, the creature that kept it operational. The heroes escaped by destroying the creature and the tower. But I don't see how that's relevant. The tower no longer exists here and my writing isn't part of what this has become."

Kya nodded. "I know that. But Hunter can't have changed that much. The original foundation of your story still exists, otherwise you wouldn't be able to control parts of the mansion."

Dean caught on to her train of thought. "Where was this tower at, originally?"

"At the back of the house, through the gardens," Colton replied. "There's a secondary kitchen back there, and then the back wings of rooms, a study, a ballroom, and then a staircase on the far right side of the house. But the staircase isn't there anymore."

"What's there instead?" Sam asked.

"A wall," Colton replied.

Heather shook her head. "Just because we can't see the staircase doesn't mean it isn't there. Maybe if we finish the story the way it was supposed to end, we can reverse what was done."

Sam nodded, his eyes lighting up at the possibility. "If we end the story, there's nothing else left after that. It just might work. We might go back to where we belong, or back to the beginning of the story."

"I'm not liking that idea," Dean grumbled. "I don't want to go back to the beginning of anything, other than this day."

Colton stared at the ground. "It could work. It's a shot in the dark, but it could work."

Dean's face set grimly. "A shot in the dark is all we've got."

"It's better than nothing," Sam agreed. "Better than standing here and trying to click our heels to get home."

"I don't know about you," Dean told his brother, "But I'm not wearing any ruby red heels."

"The color might work for you," Kya laughed.

Dean made a face and shook his head. "As fun as this chitchat has been, I want to get the hell out of here. So why don't we go try this shot in the dark?"

"I'd rather not and say we did," Heather replied, "But I want to go home too."

Sam nodded at the ghost of Colton. "Then let's go."


	14. Chapter 21

**21**

"So far so good," Sam dared to say, immediately receiving a punch in the arm from his brother.

"You know, Sam, whenever someone says that, everything goes wrong," Dean grumbled. "So when the walls try and eat us, I'm blaming you."

Sam nodded. "A lot of good that will do you if the killer walls get you first."

"What, are you two in first grade?" Kya demanded, looking slightly amused and perturbed at the same time.

"No, I graduated to second," Dean said proudly. "With a cookie and everything!"

Kya rolled her eyes and continued walking down the hallway, passing doors on either side that she didn't dare open for fear of letting something out. Her hand was gripped tightly by Heather's as the younger girl kept pace beside her. They had left Elizabeth and Colton in the gardens, after a final farewell, figuring that either they would succeed or die trying.

They had made it through the second kitchen, much smaller than the first, without incident, and then moved on to the hallway that led to the right of the house. Kya couldn't tell how long they had been walking, but her sore legs were already beginning to ache. She knew that when this was over she wouldn't be getting out of bed for awhile. And a hot shower was somewhere in that equation.

"Are they always like this?" Heather asked quietly.

"I'd by lying if I said no," she responded.

Ahead of them the boys walked, each with a gun gripped in one hand and a flashlight in the other. Despite their bickering, they were moving like professionals, each step carefully measured, sweeping the hallway with both gun and flashlight. Their flashlight arms were crossed over the gun arm, to keep the shot steady if one needed to be fired, and keep the beam steady as well.

Kya kept an ear tuned behind her and Heather, alert for attacks from behind. Despite the air of amusement that the brothers were providing, each and every one of them were on high alert from the tension of being in a confined space for too long and from experience the house had already dealt them. The air was stale here and the darkness seemed to press in from all sides, seeking to smother the bright beams of light that dared to violate its territory.

Kya opened her mouth to speak, wondering how far they had left to go and if possibly they had missed their turn, when she felt something tug against her hand. At the same time a shout from the boys warned her that they had spotted something up ahead. She turned around quickly, finding Heather being attacked not by the walls, but by the floor.

"Shit!" she yelled, grabbing the girl's other hand with her own, gripping her forearm tightly. The floor had caved in, becoming nothing more than a pit of carpeted quicksand. The carpet seemed to take on a liquid sand appearance as it caved it on itself, pulling Heather down with it. She was already stuck up to knees in the goo and sinking fast. Kya stumbled back from the edge where the carpet had become a living thing, and pulled with all her might, trying to keep the house from taking Heather too.

"Oh god!" Heather screamed. "Get me out of here!"

The sound of a gunshot rang in Kya's ears as she struggled to keep her balance while holding onto Heather.

Dean heard Kya's shout at the same time that four shadows separated themselves from the walls and stalked towards the brothers eagerly. Eight sets of glaring yellow eyes beamed back at them from the darkness as Sam released a round from his gun, hitting one directly in the chest. The shadow demon stumbled back, but kept coming after a momentary lapse.

Dean risked a glance behind him to see that the carpet had come alive as well, trying to swallow Heather whole and steadily advancing on Kya as she struggled to keep the new girl from going under. His attention was pulled away again as one of the shadows rushed him. He kicked straight out, connecting with its lower abdomen while firing his gun point blank into its face.

"Didn't we already kill you guys too?" he demanded. "This is getting old."

He swung sharply as the demon he had just shot dissolved into smoke and another one took its place, diving in to rake claws down the side of Dean's face. His jaw clenched in pain but he didn't allow himself to lose focus as he swung the flashlight beam directly at the shadow demon, forcing it to back away from the hated source of light.

Sam ducked the rush of another one, spinning around in a turn that left him behind the demon facing its back, and stuck his gun up to its neck, firing off another shot. His satisfaction was short lived as he was pushed up against the wall, fire erupting in his chest as claws shredded through his gray shirt and into his flesh. He grunted and brought his hands up, shoving the demon back until it hit the wall instead. He used the butt of his gun to bash the demon's face, receiving another vicious swipe of claws on his shoulder for his efforts. Sam stumbled back, mouth twitching in a grimace of pain before the demon rushed him again, this time taking him to the floor.

Kya had managed to free Heather's knees but the carpet quicksand sludge was persistent and kept inching toward her as she kept backpedaling to avoid it. Heather was screaming and crying, kicking her feet to try and help Kya free her, but it was only making things harder. Kya figured it was useless to tell the girl to calm down; if their positions had been switched she would probably be just as upset.

"Dammit!" Kya yelled, nearly losing her balance as the floor at the edges of her boots turned to sludge. She moved back farther, now stretching just to keep hold of Heather.

A desperate idea hit her and she looked into Heather's eyes, begging the girl to trust her. She released one of her hands and fumbled at her waist for the Zippo. When it was in her hand she flicked it open, her other arm strained horribly trying to hold onto Heather's body weight all by itself. She thought her arm would slip from its socket but she pushed through the pain, thumbing down on the wheel. Her trusty lighter flickered to life and she wasted no time in sending a ball of flame hurtling from the lighter to the sand pit. Using her mental powers she heated the ball up until it was hot enough to melt glass, and to melt sand. As the fireball hit the sand pit turned into even looser sand and she was able to pull Heather free a few precious more inches.

Encouraged by her plan, and the turn of events, Kya kept one arm around the girl's wrist, and kept firing off the flaming balls of heat.


	15. Chapters 22 and 23

**22**

Sam struggled against his attacker before realizing that his gun had been knocked from his hands. The flashlight lay on the floor just out of his reach and he could hear the sounds of pain and battle permeating the air around him. The demon wrapped iron hands around his throat and he kicked out, trying to flip the demon off of him.

Dean followed the demon with his flashlight, before it dodged out of the way of the painful beam and disappeared, only to reappear behind him. He felt a claw rip into his lower back and he stumbled, falling forward onto his knees. He could sense the demon approaching rapidly behind him, determined to overwhelm its seemingly outmatched opponent. Dean dropped to the floor, flipping before he hit the carpet to land on his back, with his gun straight up in the air before him. He dropped the flashlight, grabbing at the gun with both hands to ensure a steady shot as the demon came into view.

"Gun control," he advised the demon, "Use both hands."

He fired the gun and the demon took the hit in the neck, dissolving into smoke like his companion had done. Dean pushed himself back up and looked around, spotting two dark shapes on the floor a few feet down the hall. Dean cursed under his breath as he realized that it was Sam and another demon.

Sam could hear a distant ringing in his ears as his vision started to dim slightly, the demon's head going in and out of focus. He could no longer feel the burning in his throat as his limbs began to tingle, losing oxygen and thereby speeding up the blood flow as his heart worked overtime to send blood to his vital organs. He thought he saw a darker shape rise up behind the demon and he cursed his luck for going out this way.

A distant boom filled the air and the demon disappeared, becoming a smoking cloud that sifted away into the stale air of the hallway. A hand reached down as Sam lay there, blinking his eyes and sucking in lungfuls of oxygen. He flinched away from the hand before he realized it was Dean and he grabbed at his brother's forearm, getting hauled to his feet. Dean steadied his brother as he turned to see in what shape Kya and Heather were in.

Kya heard the gunshots firing off behind her but she ignored them, firing off a different kind of shot all her own. With each hit the sandpit lost more hold on Heather until the Zippo flickered and sputtered, the flame dying out. Kya cursed to herself and dropped the lighter, swinging her now free hand around to grab at the back of Heather's shirt.

She pulled for all she was worth and in a sudden movement both of them went flying backwards, Heather landing unceremoniously on top of her. She wrapped her arms around the girl, dragging her backward away from the searching sandpit.

She watched as the carpet gave up its search and slowly reverted back to normal, becoming the regular blue carpet that they had previously been walking on. She breathed a sigh of relief while Heather slapped at her legs, trying to brush away clumps of sand that weren't there. It was obvious the girl was clearly shaken by the new attack the house had tried, but Kya knew that it most likely wasn't the last attempt it would make.

She looked up as a hand reached down to clasp her shoulder, jerking in surprise before she realized it was Sam and Dean, looking the worse for wear but very much alive.

She accepted Dean's hand and both girls were pulled to their feet.

"Happy now Sammy?" Dean demanded.

Sam shrugged, rubbing at his bruised throat. When he spoke his voice was hoarser than usual, as if he were forcing it out through damaged windpipes. "Are you implying this is my fault?"

"Damn straight," Dean told him, retrieving the fallen flashlights and gun. "You had to open your mouth. And then, not only did the walls attack us, but the floor too! Way to go, psychic wonder."

"Shut up," Sam grumbled, knowing that Dean was mostly kidding.

This place was getting to all of them and he knew his brother was getting frustrated with an opponent they couldn't really measure or predict. Not only did it seem the house itself was a living thing, it could also reproduce things that seemed to be buried in the depths of their memories. It was a nightmare, a place of horror and bad dreams that took the lives of all that dared to venture its halls. He could understand his brother's growing frustration as he was feeling it too. For the first time in a long time of hunting down things that had killed most of the people they had run into he was very concerned that they wouldn't make it out of this one alive. At least not all of them.

He watched as Kya inspected the claw wounds that Dean had sustained, lifting the back of his shirt to see how deep they were. Heather came to him, shaking visibly and clearly frightened, and he allowed her into his arms, drawing her into a hug. She buried her face in his chest and her arms gripped around his waist as if he were the only anchor left to a world where death didn't lurk around every corner. For her, this world was home, back with her family in her own room where she felt safe. For him, this world didn't exist. Because even back outside, in the world that he had come from to end up here, his world was filled with nothing but death lurking around every corner.

"We shouldn't stand still too long," he said. "We need to get closer to the staircase before anything like this happens again. We might not be so lucky next time."

"Way to inspire the troops Captain Sunshine," Dean griped.

"Hey," Sam protested. "I'm just telling the truth. The closer we get, the better off we are."

"Sam's right," Kya agreed. "We need to keep moving. This place is going to try and stop us. What's important is that we don't let it."

Dean nodded, grimacing as his shirt brushed against the wounds on his back. He gave Kya a quick kiss on the forehead that implied much more feeling that it gave off appearance-wise, and put his gun and flashlight back up in true SWAT form. Kya found herself thinking that if they weren't in the chosen profession of ghostbusting, they would make excellent soldiers or elite police.

Once again she took Heather's hand, this time gripping it even tighter, as they continued on, every shadow they passed seeking to steal their last breath.

**23**

The study had come and gone without incident. Creeping through the dark room, bookcases looming in the shadows, and furniture looking as though it might sprout teeth and wings, they had all but run through.

This place was starting to get under Dean's skin. Every door they passed, every step on the carpet, every shadow, seemed to breathe and watch them with a million beady eyes glowing in the darkness that they couldn't see. Dean was pretty sure that if this place had a mouth, which he wasn't entirely sure that it didn't, it was laughing at them now for their pathetic attempts at survival. Although maybe not so pathetic because they had managed to live this long.

They followed the hallway again until it began to widen and finally ended in a huge archway that opened into a pit of black.

"Ballroom?" Kya asked.

"Plenty of space to hide a pile of monsters," Dean commented.

"That's great positive thinking there," Sam grumbled.

Dean cast his brother a scowl, as if to say that positive thinking had never been part of the equation. In a place where the walls and floor wanted to eat you and spit out your bones positive thinking was hard to come by.

"As long as they don't play polka in there, I'll be okay," Dean said with a shudder.

Kya hid a smirk. How Dean could think that polka music was worse than what they had already faced was beyond her. Sam turned around to stare at his brother before shining the beam into the pit of black that lay a few feet beyond.

"Well I doubt they danced to Metallica," he said.

"Damn," Dean responded.

The beam of light revealed a white tiled floor, shining with an almost pearlescent quality in the faint light. Sam summoned his courage and stepped forward, practically jumping across the threshold to stand in the entrance to the ballroom. He stomped his foot a few times, as if testing to make sure the floor was in fact, solid and once satisfied motioned for the others to join him.

"You know Sam," Kya commented. "If the floor was going to turn to quicksand again, I wouldn't think it would let you know immediately."

"Just making sure," he replied.

Once they had all entered they were shocked when the chandelier hanging above them lit, like it had in the foyer, casting a bright glow around the room. They looked around in awe as one by one chandeliers spaced over the ceiling lit by themselves to reveal a huge space for dancing, tables, mingling, and a stage off to the right for a live orchestra to play. The tile floor was polished white and for some reason was missing the coat of dust that should have been there indicating it hadn't been used in years. The walls were a pale yellow that gave the room a surreal quality when the light from the chandeliers washed across them. At the far end of the ballroom was another balcony that was granted access to by another set of double stairs that twirled their way up to the landing and into another archway that lay in darkness past the reach of light. There was no furniture, just a wide open space between them and the stairway that led to their destination. For some reason that space was more daunting than anything else.

"Anybody up for a 50 yard dash?" Dean wondered. "You can go first, Sammy."

Sam scowled at his brother. "No, no, ladies first. I insist."

"Boys," Kya said tiredly, "Can we toss insults later?"

A few quiet seconds later and Dean announced, "I'm hungry."

Kya groaned and shook her head.

They began advancing and the only thing to be heard in the silence of the room was their own heavy breathing. Dean kept his ears tuned for the first sounds of polka music, but thankfully, none came.

Heather stopped short, tugging on Kya's hand causing the older girl to stop short.

"What?" she asked.

"I thought . . .I thought I saw something," she said quietly. "But it's not there anymore."

Kya turned a slow circle, searching the room. She saw nothing in the dream like quality of the room and turned an eye on Heather with a shrug. She stopped again when the faint sound of water washing over something solid reached her ears.

"Guys," she said, turning both brothers around.

"What?" Sam asked.

"This place is playing tricks on us," she grumbled. "I thought I heard something."

She noticed that Sam was staring beyond her and his brown eyes were open wide in shock. She cursed under her breath and turned around to see that the pale yellow walls were no longer yellow. From the cracks where the ceiling and the walls melded together came a torrent of blood, washing down the yellow surface and hitting the floor with alarming speed. The whole room was bleeding, walls to floor, and more blood bubbled up from the tile beneath their feet as if the floor had become a giant sponge and an invisible hand was squeezing it from beneath.

"Oh God!" Heather murmured.

"I don't think God has anything to do with it," Dean commented.

The shock wore off and they began moving again, this time faster. The depth of the thick crimson liquid was growing and it made moving through it hard. Kya jumped back as a hand reached up from within the growing lake of blood to grab at her pant leg. She screamed involuntarily when she saw the hand was rotted, part of it skeletal and the rest of it disintegrated flesh that was drooping off the bone. She heard Heather scream from beside her and could quickly come to the conclusion that she wasn't the only one seeing half rotted corpses rising from the lake of death that had once been a ballroom.

"Shit!" Dean yelled, pushing back a full corpse that had risen from the blood to lunge at him. "Now would be a good time to run!"

"Thank you Captain Obvious," Sam retorted, shoving another half rotted corpse away.

Kya pulled Heather closer, wrapping one arm around the girl's waist as she pulled them through the blood that seemed to be grabbing at their ankles, pulling them back. She stopped short, pushing Heather behind her.

The corpse of a man had put itself in her path, facial features a mess of bone and skin, muscle completely detiorated. Clothing hung off him in tatters and skin hung from his bones, looking as though it might fall off at any second.

"Oh gross," Kya commented. "Please tell me I don't have to touch you."

The zombie creature lunged at her and she kicked out, hearing bone snap beneath her blow. A piece of skin flaked off, dropping into the swirling red that continued bubbling up with no sign of stopping. The skeletal man came at her again and she let go of Heather's hand to shove her hands forward, palms outward, driving them into its ribcage with enough force to break another bone. She pushed back her revulsion and grabbed hold of one of the ribs, tearing it free of the ribcage and using it as a weapon as the skeleton came forward again. She pushed Heather behind her again, keeping one hand on the girl and the other in front of her to ward off the attacks they were facing.

Dean was swarmed with them. They grabbed at his clothing and his limbs, attaching themselves like so many leeches in a South American swamp. He couldn't even see past them to his companions and his stomach lurched at the thought that this was it. His last thought as they dragged him down, pushing both his body and his head into the lake of blood that had advanced to about three feet deep, was that they should have just played polka.


	16. Chapter 24

**24**

Sam shoved another couple of animated corpses off of him, searching for a way to see past the endless supply that the blood lake kept dredging up. The good thing was, they weren't that smart. They didn't overtly attack but just kept coming, as if to drive him down by sheer numbers. Sam began kicking and punching, limbs flailing in any direction that there was a body to hit, or half a body, until his fist came up and was stopped short by a solid hand.

"Sam!" Kya cried. "Your fist doesn't go with my face."

She released her hold on his fist and pulled Heather into their huddle.

"The staircase is clear," he said quickly, elbowing a corpse that had ambled up behind them. "You guys have to get to it."

"And you're gonna do what? Go down like the Titanic?" Kya demanded. "No way."

Sam arched an eyebrow. "The Titanic? Are you implying something?"

"Sam!" Heather screeched. "This isn't the time to wonder whether or not your ass is too big!"

"Has anybody seen Dean?" Kya demanded, sudden panic gripping her throat.

Sam's eyes widened. "I figured he was heading towards the stairs."

"Well, I don't see him."

"Shit!" Sam cried. "We have to get out of here."

Kya's eyes hardened. They had made it this far, they weren't going to fail now. She pushed Heather into Sam's arms and shoved them both forward. "Go! Get to the stairs now!"

Sam turned back, punching another corpse that reached out for them. "I'm not leaving you or my brother."

"If me or your brother don't get out of this, you're everyone's last chance. Get her out of here Sam!" Kya yelled, her tone commanding and angry.

For a moment Sam looked torn and Kya knew that it was hard for him to walk away, or more accurately run, but she was telling the truth. Sam was by far the better choice to escape here and get to the tower than the two girls were. She couldn't let both brothers go down and if she had anything to say about it, she wouldn't let Dean die either. He had saved her life, risking his own, and she would do her best to repay the favor.

Finally Sam turned, shoving his way through the growing ranks of undead with Heather in tow. His face was locked in anger and guilt as his fists pummeled them back, each hit an extension of his rage within.

Dean struggled wildly, disrupting the surface of the liquid that held him under, but he couldn't break free of the hands pinning him to the tile floor below. Copper filled his mouth and burned his eyes as he tried to push for air that was mere feet above him. He felt like a two year old drowning in the shallow end of the swimming pool.

He thought back to everything they had fought before, much of it replicated in this house that had claimed so many lives. He had always been a fighter, a warrior, and now he was finally going to join his mother. The thought made him angry.

His anger was useless, however. He was outmatched and the strength of the corpses holding him under outdid his own. As he thrashed his lungs began to burn painfully, begging for air. He could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears as it struggled to keep his body alive. Even as it pushed for his survival his limbs began to tingle, to slow in their movement, as strength ebbed from his body.

Kya gritted her teeth and swung the bone she had stolen from the first corpse with all her strength, shattering the skull of one corpse that stepped to close. She fought like a wild thing, pushing through the ranks of undead with abandon. She was covered in blood from the liquid she sloshed through and the weight of the blood, so much thicker than water, was slowing her down, making her feel as if she were moving through a time warp.

There were at least ten in front of her and she could barely see past them to catch a glimpse of Sam and Heather reaching the bottom of the stairs. Momentary relief flooded through her; they were going to make it.

She moved forward again, shoving another corpse away with rage as she nearly stumbled and fell from the weight of the blood dragging her down. She thought about Dean, somewhere in this mess, and her heart raged. She watched Heather and Sam ascend the staircase, Sam turning back one last time at the top of the landing before Heather dragged him forward out of sight.

Kya took a hit on her back for her distraction and stumbled, falling to her hands and knees in the blood. This place had taken so much already, so many lives and so much potential for the world gone. Now it had Dean, somewhere near her but so far beyond her reach.

Anger washed through her, purging her of anything but raw emotion. She raised her head through a curtain of blood-soaked hair, eyes narrowing at the sight in front of her. She could feel the rage boiling through her, fire spreading in her veins as her heart pumped more pure anger than blood through her veins. She could feel the hatred building until at last it exploded free.

A wave of flame ignited over the water, rushing forward on the waves the churning bodies created. As her anger grew the flames grew with her, covering the surface of the blood and catching hold of any corpses in its path. Kya pushed herself to her feet, stepping through the blood and flames with her hands clenched at her sides. She walked forward and the flames rushed ahead, hungrily devouring the corpses in its path as it ate the surface of the red liquid boiling beneath it. As the flames spread the blood began to boil, churning up roiling bubbles beneath the flickering fire that melted the bones touching the liquid into ash.

Kya spotted a huddled mass of corpses about fifteen feet off, hands submerged in the water as though holding something down. She rushed forward, through the fire and blood, toward the gaggle of undead. The fire rushed ahead of her, eager to please and be satiated, leaping from the water to smother the undead before she could reach them and tear them apart with her bare hands. She reached the spot just as they were reduced to ash and plunged her hands into the roiling mass of liquid to find something soft beneath. She planted her feet and tugged upward, pulling Dean's body up.

"Dean!" she screamed.

She put her hands under his arms and began pulling, trusting the fire that she had trusted all her life to keep them safe. She felt as though time had slowed down to a crawl before her foot hit the bottom of the stairs. She kept pulling, arms aching from the strain, and dragged Dean's lifeless body to the top of the landing.

Below them the lake of blood was covered in flames. She kept dragging him further onto the landing before dropping to her knees in exhaustion. Dean's eyes were closed and his limbs completely limp. As she leaned down, putting her ear next to his mouth she knew that she would hear no sign of breathing. His chest didn't rise and fall and there was no sign of the cocky smile appearing on his face signifying that this was all some horrible joke. Dean was gone.

As she wiped the blood from his face and tears poured down her own to drop onto his pale skin, she let loose a scream that she was sure the entire mansion heard. Pain, rage, guilt, and fury tore through her vocal cords and she unleashed it with abandon on the sound waves of the world.


	17. Chapter 25

**25**

Heather half dragged Sam down the hallway, walking blindly into the hallway where there was no light at all. She held one hand out in front of her in case she was about to run headlong into a wall. For a long time they went this way, running through darkness with Heather pulling Sam to keep him from turning around and running back into the ballroom.

Her heart pounded through her ears and her own ragged breathing sounded frightening to her. She cast aside the thoughts that kept trying to plague her mind; that the chances of their friends getting out of that room alive were slim to none. They had a job to do; she was going to make sure it got done.

"Sam," she gasped, pulling him along, "we have to keep going. We have to end this."

"My brother," he said brokenly. "I can't leave him!"

She swung around and grabbed his shoulders, even though she couldn't see him in the darkness. They both stopped running, all sounds of the chaos they had left behind already far gone in the silence of the hallway. They must have run farther than she thought they had.

"He would want you to finish this," she snapped. "He would want you to end this so that all the souls here can go free, and the people out there will be safe."

Sam hung his head, gripping her shoulders, and suddenly fell to his knees. Her heart began to slow but her breath still came quickly from the sprint down the hallway that had left her breathless. She sank to the ground with him, wrapping his larger frame in her arms, knowing that to move on and finish the task at hand he would need this moment.

"He's always been there," he said in a broken tone. "He's always been there."

Heather pulled his backpack from his shoulders, keeping one arm around him while his head was buried in her shoulder, and opened it up. She dug through it until her fingers touched on something that felt like a flashlight. She fumbled with it until it switched on, blinding her momentarily as a solitary beam washed through the darkness pressing in on them from all sides.

"Sam," she said. "We don't even know that he's dead. We have to keep moving. Don't give up hope yet."

"How could they have gotten out of that?" he demanded, finally getting to his feet.

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "But there's a chance they did."

Sam snatched up his backpack and threw it back over his shoulders after retrieving a 9mm from it. He gripped the gun in his hands, checking to make sure it was loaded and shoving extra ammo in his back pocket. His motions were fueled by anger. He knew that Heather was right, there was a chance they had gotten out, but he couldn't help but think that if they did they would have caught up to them by now. Or at the very least they would have heard them coming down the hallway. He could feel it in his heart, an aching absence that signified something was horribly wrong. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had lost his brother to this madhouse and the thought nearly took him to his knees again. Heather reached out a hand to support him and he leaned against her, grateful for her strength when he had none at the moment.

"It will be okay, Sam," she said quietly. "We'll get through this."

Sam nodded, wiping at a tear before setting his jaw firmly. "Let's finish this. For Dean."

"And Kya," Heather added.

Sam gripped her tiny hand in his and took the lead, letting her shine the flashlight beam in his path from behind him. The hallway seemed narrower than the rest, more claustrophobic, and after the last event he was even more cautious than usual. He could swear he could hear his own footsteps on the plush carpet but it was just his imagination playing tricks on him.

He thought he heard a scream from behind them but he racked it up to his own imagination again, shaking it off and pushing onward until he ran into a wall with no place else left to go.

"This must be it," he said, more to hear a voice than anything else.

"Yup," Heather agreed, for the same reason. "Now how do we find a staircase in a wall?"

Sam stepped back, pushing her behind him. He held up the gun and told her to cover her ears and when she obeyed he began firing, punching holes in the wall with bullets. When enough holes had been made he handed her the gun and began kicking at the wall, putting all of his anger behind the blows. Heather joined him and together they broke the wall apart piece by piece. Clouds of dust and wood chips flew into the air, choking and blinding them, but they continued on fueled by nothing but the desire to see it all end. When they were done they stumbled back away from the pile of rubble at their feet and waved hands in the cloud of sawdust that had permeated the air.

When their vision cleared they saw through the hole a set of wooden stairs ascending steeply up into darkness. The steps were narrow and spaced largely, so that climbing would be difficult at best. It wasn't a convenient staircase of perfectly spaced steps; it looked as though it had been built by a drunken contractor.

Sam looked at Heather with apprehension in his eyes to find that her fear matched his own. They had no idea what lay above them, what they would have to face in order to find freedom.

"Ready?" he asked, reaching for her hand.

"No," she replied. "But that doesn't really matter. Let's finish this."

He led the way up the stairs as they groaned under his feet. He could here Heather coming up behind him and was slightly comforted by the solidity of her hand in his. All he could think about was if he died today, he would get to be with Jess again but for Heather's sake he would go down fighting if it was going to be that way.

He kept climbing until they reached the top where a door was buried among in wood framing. There were arcane symbols around the edges, glyphs to more than likely hold something in, and something scribbled in Latin on the door itself. Sam didn't have time to try and decipher the words or the ruins so he put a hand to the door knob. As his skin touched it he felt a shudder coarse through his spine and he pulled Heather up closer behind him, there hands interlocked tightly.

"Sam?" she asked quietly.

He pushed open the door and quickly climbed through the threshold to find himself in a rather large room lit by moonlight filtering in from a huge stained glass window on the far side of the room. His eyes landed on the middle of the room and widened in shock as he seriously considered running full speed back down the stairs.

"Oh," he commented. "Shit."


	18. Chapters 26 and 27

**26**

Kya pulled herself from her despair with difficulty and laid Dean's body on the hardwood floor, pushing back his head and prying open his mouth. Tears streamed down her face as she began the first of fifteen compressions, followed by three breaths into his slack mouth while she pinched his nose shut. Her sob rang out against the sound of fire hissing over the dark blood lake as she started the compressions over again, her interlocked arms pushing down on his sternum with all her strength.

"Come on, Dean," she urged through tears. "Come on!"

She bent down again; one, two, three breaths then back up again for more frantic compressions. His body jerked each time her hands came down but she refused to quit. She gritted her teeth in defiance of the situation and resumed breathing her own life into his lungs, desperate for a response.

Four sets into her CPR she began to realize that it was hopeless. His skin had lost all color and his beautiful hazel eyes were sealed shut beneath eyelids that showed no signs of movement. She had to stop herself from screaming again and resumed her sets with a ferocity that startled even her.

She had never been a quitter. Never. She had excelled at everything she did, because she pushed herself to it, believing firmly that how high you went in life was in your own control. She had been told time and again by her father that anything was possible if you tried hard enough for it and believed strongly enough. You had to have faith in yourself and faith was something she couldn't afford to lack right now.

She pounded harder on his chest, angry fire burning in her heart replacing the salty tears that had been streaming down her face. She lost herself in the rhythm of it, fifteen compressions, three breaths, fifteen compressions, three breaths, until her hands and arms began to ache from the insistent use, and still she kept on. Faith. Fire. Passion. Never give up. Never give up.

She stopped suddenly when a choked sound reached her ears, so tuned to the fire raging in her heart that she almost missed it. She opened her eyes to see Dean tilt his head to the side, a gout of blood spewing from his mouth and lungs as he coughed it up with violence.

"Dean!" she cried, pulling him into her arms and tilting his head to the side to allow him to get the remaining blood from his lungs.

His hand clutched the one she had wrapped around his chest to support him weakly and he sucked in lungfuls of air that burned his aching chest. Slowly his beautiful green eyes opened, and she was relieved to see their vivid color, the tiny gold flecks that floated in a sea of jade. They sat for a few minutes in silence while Dean tried to get the feeling back in his limbs and to let his lungs stop screaming at him.

"Took you long enough," he finally managed.

"Yeah," she said thoughtfully, "It sure did."

He nodded and with her help managed to get to his feet, trying to find the strength to stand on his own. His limbs still felt like rubber and they continued to tingle as his heart raced to pump blood back into them. She wrapped one arm around his chest and the other she used to support his arm over her shoulders. She stood firm, holding him up, while he fished for something to say.

"Thanks," he finally said.

"No time for that," she admitted. "Sam and Heather ran off to finish the job. They could be in trouble."

"Sam?" Dean said with a raspy laugh. "In trouble? Never."

Kya rolled her eyes. Yes, good old sarcastic Dean was back and she was surprised to realize just how glad she was for that. A few minutes later and she was able to remove her column of bodily support and he stood on his own. He glanced around at the room that had taken him away from life for a few minutes with distaste. Fire still burned on top of the blood lake but there were no dead corpses to be found. All of them had been obliterated in the inferno her outraged heart had created.

"Remind me to never make you mad," he said, starting for the hallway on shaky legs.

"Dually noted," she commented, following close behind him.

Her hand found his and even in his weakness she was comforted by his strength. The man had just come back from the dead. She was pretty sure he had been close to the mythical white light before being dragged back to reality. Kya was exhausted physically and emotionally, but she couldn't let that slow her down. Her friends were most likely in trouble and she had to keep going. Faith. Fire. Passion. Never give up.

She gripped Dean's hand tightly, afraid that if she let go she would lose him again, this time permanently. Dean seemed to understand her feelings and the grip that he returned was just as strong. They made their way into the darkness of the hallway, stopping only to retrieve a flashlight and shotgun from the bag that Kya still wore on her back. Dean had lost his in the fighting back in the ballroom. He scowled at the thought. One of his favorite guns was in that bag and now he would have to waste the time when they got back to replace it. Damn house.

Their steps were hurried and with each one Dean gained more strength, fueled by the thought of Sam in trouble. His baby brother most likely already thought Dean was dead and that thought upset Dean. He wanted Sammy to know that he hadn't left him, hadn't abandoned him to face the darkness alone. He was still there for his brother, still alive to keep his promise to their father to always keep Sammy safe. If Sam needed him, which he most likely did knowing Sam, then Dean wasn't going to fail him. He had to be there. Had to keep him safe. Had to keep his promise. Had to protect his family, at all costs. Nothing in this house would stop him from fulfilling that goal he thought with clenched teeth as he pulled Kya along behind him.

The shotgun in his hands felt solid and good, more comfortable than anything else in the world, other than Kya's small hand in his own. The thought surprised him but he didn't have time to dwell on it much. The flashlight beam was revealing nothing but more dark hallway and his gut was telling him that time was running out.

**27**

Sam jerked Heather into the room, having nowhere else to go but on a tumble down the stairs, pulling her to the floor just as the first set of needle sharp quarrels shot into the space they had just been. He pushed her to the floor, sitting up quickly in a crouch as he attempted to shield her body with his own.

They had entered the lair of the Manticore and Sam instantly regretted going this alone. Heather wasn't going to be much help since she wasn't battle hardened and from what Sam knew about this creature he was in a lot of trouble.

The beast pacing back and forth in the center of the room was incredibly frightening and even more ugly. Massive lion paws stalked the ground with a lion's body, a massive tail thick with scales swung back and forth in the air, the end of which looked like a large porcupine had been stuck to it. The needles in that tail quivered anxiously, ready to be shot from it again when the monster felt the need. Its face was the worst. It had the face of a man, painted red instead of the usual flesh colors, and its eyes glowed in the relative darkness with a soft yellow blaze. Its mouth hung open, hungry for flesh, revealing three rows of incredibly sharp teeth on both top and bottom, one row stacked behind the other. Sam thought any dentist who saw this maw would go screaming the other way, no matter how much he was being offered to fix the toothache. The teeth and the eyes made the man's face a horrible parody of life, combined with the bizarre body parts of the animals that created this monstrosity. What should have been the mane of a lion were instead more sharp quills, quivering in the moonlight as they wreathed around its neck to protect what would have been a vulnerable spot. The hide of the creature didn't much look like fur either. It looked tough, almost armor plated. Sam seriously wondered if a cannon would even do any good. What threw him off the most was its sheer size. It wasn't lion sized and certainly not porcupine sized. The thing was more the size of a small horse, making Sam feel very small and pathetic indeed.

Sam struggled to recall everything he had ever read about the supposedly mythical Manticore. He should have known better. If vampires were real, why the hell not a hybrid monstrosity? He shook his head, wondering if a dragon would come next. The Manticore was a flesh eater, he knew that much. It didn't take a textbook to figure that out. The spines in its tail were tipped with poison that would paralyze an opponent within minutes if they hit. And if he remembered correctly he thought he had read some legends where the evil beasts could actually talk intellectually. Which meant they could bore you to death with Algebraic equations before they ate you alive and spit out your bones to make coffee tables with. Sam seriously wished this one would start spouting Shakespeare until he keeled over from death by talking before he had to face those gruesome teeth.

He wracked his brain frantically for a way out, any solution, but all he could come up with was 'don't become dinner'. _Great, Sam, that's really a master plan. _

He ducked to the floor again as another set of paralyzing spines flew his way, the aim accurate enough to slam into the wooden wall behind him where the spines quivered from the impact. It had almost been his head quivering from the impact. He grabbed Heather's hand and pulled her with him, crawling as fast as he could across the floor on his hands and knees to reach a table. He stood up quickly, shoving it over until it fell on its side and ducked back down, hiding behind the pathetic wooden shield.

He had to do something and fast. This thing wasn't going to play with them for very long. _Of all the things to hide in an attic, why the hell couldn't it be Christmas decorations like the rest of the friggin world? _Sam curbed his frustrated line of thought but couldn't stop himself from thinking he would rather be dealing with Pinhead.

He jerked back as yet more spines shot into his makeshift wooden shield, the tips piercing through the old wood and glaring at him as if in spite. They seemed to mock him and his pathetic attempt at winning against this.

"Sam!" Heather whispered. "What the hell are we gonna do?"

"When I come up with a plan, I'll be sure to tell you," he said.

"Oh great," she complained. "We're toast."

Sam shook his head. "Hopefully not the edible kind."

The Manticore had lost patience with its game. Sam heard the massive paws pounding against the floor and he grabbed Heather just in time to roll away as it charged the table head first. The table splintered and gave under the tremendous force and the Manticore roared, shaking its spined head in frustration when it found the spot empty. Sam pushed Heather around the room, staying to the walls and low to the ground, ducking behind any available furniture. They took cover behind an old couch, hoping that their flight had not been spotted. Heather swung the backpack from her shoulders, digging through it frantically until she came back up with a flare gun and sawed off shotgun, both already loaded and ready for use.

Sam chose the shotgun, not entirely sure if the flare gun would do anything other than set the whole room on fire and burn them to death before they got eaten. Then the Manticore could just have his dinner extra crispy.

In the back of his mind he knew it was a losing battle. There was no way a shotgun was going to hurt this thing, even if he got lucky. Sam cast one last look at Heather with an apology already written in his eyes for failing her. She tried to pull him back down but it was no use. The youngest Winchester was already on his feet, coming up from behind the couch to swing the shotgun around and put it into firing mode.

"Hey," he called. "You wanted your dinner to go, right?"

The Manticore swung around at his voice, letting loose another wall rattling roar that almost had Sam ducking back behind the couch and wishing fervently for a good bed to hide under. He swallowed his fear and fired the shotgun, the bullet round hitting the beast in the chest, right under the spines coating its neck. He fired again out of desperation as the first bullet fell harmlessly to the floor and the only thing to show for it was the monster stumbling back a few steps and getting even more annoyed. The second bullet did the same, hitting the Manticore in the side and dropping to the floor.

Then the Manticore fired.

Sam let out a yelp as the gun fell from his hands to clatter uselessly on the floor, not that it hadn't been useless to begin with. This thing was invincible and Sam finally realized that at the same time he realized one of the spines was sticking out of his shoulder. Another spine sank into his left thigh as the monstrosity fired again and Sam felt the poison spreading through his veins. He didn't even realize he was falling until he felt himself hit the floor with a dull thud. He could swear he saw the Manticore smile and those awful teeth glinted in the moonlight filtering through the stained glass window as it slowly approached him.

Sam closed his eyes and prayed that he wouldn't feel it.


	19. Chapters 28 and 29

**28**

Dean's heart crashed against his ribcage and his weakened body protested against the sudden sprint, but he ignored it. With Kya hot on his heels he had began running for all he was worth when the first gunshot had reached his ears. His only thought was he was going to lose Sam and everything he fought to keep in this world would be gone. He pushed his body harder, fighting against the need to fall to his knees from exhaustion. A second gunshot rang out, clearer now, and Dean stopped short when he reached the gaping hole in the wall that had obviously been carved out by his brother and Heather. Dean didn't give what lay ahead a second thought. He grabbed Kya's hand to make sure the stairs didn't try and swallow her whole and pounded up the steps. The door above the crazily unproportional staircase was slightly ajar and all Dean heard from within was silence that made his heart nearly meet his toes head on.

He didn't think. Didn't plan or prepare. He just charged in, shoving one hand against the door to force it open so he could go plowing headlong into a room that held possibly the ugliest creature he had ever seen in his life, both living or in his nightmares. He swallowed hard, stopping Kya short behind him so that she was pulled close to his back by the hand he had behind his back still entwined with her own.

"Oh my God," was all she could think to say.

"I don't think God would make something that ugly," Dean managed to comment, before shoving both him and Kya out of the way of a fire of missile-like quills.

The Manticore had turned its attention away from his baby brother, sprawled out on the floor with his eyes open but unable to move a single inch of his paralyzed limbs. A shotgun lay on the floor next to him which Dean figured had produced the two shots he had heard before Sam had been hit by the Manticore's much more effective form of bullets.

Fear pushed them to new running speeds and they dove behind a couch, going airborne for a minute in their panicked dive as another set of quills was shot their way. Kya was surprised to see Heather huddling behind the couch, fear apparent in her dark eyes as she made herself as small as possible. Dean sat up from his manic dive and looked around quickly for any weapon that would be of use. He found nothing.

"You're alive," Heather commented, although all the joy had been torn from her voice.

"And I plan to stay that way," Dean replied.

Heather nodded dully. He could tell that she thought all was lost and they were simply next up on the buffet line. He gritted his teeth, all smartass comments going out the window as he thought about their predicament. He wasn't going to lose anybody today but how he was going to accomplish that was beyond him. All he knew was he had to get Sam away from that thing. That was much easier thought than done. He knew what they were up against, and for once, Dean was resigned to thinking the situation was hopeless. He wanted nothing more in the world than to keep his brother and the girls safe, to carry them out of this alive, but he knew that reality was a lot less happy. Fairytale endings came few and far between in his line of work and the creature they were up against was the destroyer of those dreams. It had no obvious weaknesses. The thing was a killing machine, a perfect choice to guard the energy of the house from hell, and possibly the only thing that Dean could think of that could steal the thunder right out from under him. Dean tried not to let his face show the hopelessness he was feeling inside. If they didn't do something, anything, the Manticore was going to use one of Sammy's bones for a toothpick.

"There's three of us, one of . . .it," Kya said. "We can confuse it maybe, enough for one of us to grab Sam and get him out of the way."

Dean nodded. The plan was crazy, kamikaze-type suicidal but it was all they had to go on for the moment. And he was beginning to feel more like a kamikaze with every second that he spent in this house. He was pretty sure Death was getting sick of him ringing on the doorbell and running away. Next time he might just be hiding in the bush next to the porch to catch Dean in the act. The three remaining companions steeled the little nerve they had left and nodded to each other before each rose and dove in a different direction. Dean went straight for his brother while Kya came out of her roll to land behind the Manticore, and Heather to its right.

"Hey!" Kya screamed.

She picked up a forlorn looking board lying on the ground from the splintered table and rushed forward, adrenaline and insanity replacing fear. She swung the board with all of her strength against the monster's flank, turning it around to rush at her in annoyance. Instinct took over as she saw the Manticore charging her way, spiked tail reared back to swing when it got in range. She didn't give it the chance. Kya sprang from the ground with finely toned legs, launching herself into the air in a forward flip that took her over the swinging tail where she stuck the landing on the other side of the creature like the master gymnast that she was. Her landing put her right next to Heather and she turned to see Dean dragging Sam behind the only cover left in the room, the couch.

He needed more time.

Heather sprinted out from behind Kya in a moment of complete bravery that stunned the older girl. The tiny Hispanic girl screamed at the Manticore, desperate to get its attention away from the people that had saved her life as it prepared its tail for another barrage of needles aimed at Dean. To her relief, and her terror, the Manticore swung around at the sound of her outraged voice.

Heather had nowhere else to run since she had reached the side of the room where the table had been laid to waste and the Manticore was already on its way toward her, taking up any chance she might have had at getting back across the room to the couch.

Heather closed her eyes and resigned herself to her fate.

**29**

She watched the horrible beast stalk closer until its tail was within striking range. Heather sank to the floor, curling up into the smallest ball possible as she waited for it to strike her down. The beast pulled its tail back and Heather knew it was seconds before it hit her full force. If the blow didn't kill her, the Manticore's teeth certainly would. Her only consoling thought was that maybe the others would escape.

Heather dared to open one eye only to see the deadly spiked tail soaring her way, right for her head, when a dark shape hurtled over its head. Heather had trouble registering what she saw at first.

Kya had grabbed up a thick board from the ground mid-sprint and launched herself into the air once again, this time performing an aerial layout that the judges in competition would have gone nuts over. Her height put her well over the Manticore's body and tail and she sailed over it, twisting her body in midair to come down facing forward in a crouch in front of Heather with the board already raised above her head.

The tail slammed into the board, the spikes causing it to get lodged in place for a moment as the Manticore backed up, wrenching the board from Kya's hands and roaring in frustration as it tried to shake the board loose.

Kya grabbed Heather's hand and pushed past the angered beast, rushing for the couch with all the speed of terror behind her strides. Both girls dove behind it again, finding Dean on the ground with his brother attempting to pull out the paralyzing spikes that stuck in his shoulder and thigh. It was obvious Sam was conscious, but completely immobile. He couldn't even move his mouth to speak and the only thing that moved were his eyes.

"We need a better plan," Kya gasped.

"Hey, the crazy plan was yours," Dean defended, wrenching the quill from Sam's leg.

"The crazy plan worked," Kya shot back. "But it won't get us out of here alive."

Dean watched Heather fiddle with a flare gun absently, lost in her own thoughts of how it was going to feel to get eaten alive. An even crazier idea than Kya's sprang to his head and he grabbed the blonde girl, pulling her close and whispering in her ear, just in case the Manticore really did have the intelligence of Einstein. So far it didn't appear that way, more like the intelligence of George of the Jungle, but Dean wasn't taking any chances and it didn't seem like the beast was going to run itself into a tree anytime soon.

"I need to borrow that," Dean said, snatching the flare gun from Heather's hand without explanation.

"What the hell—," she started but Kya cut her off.

"Stay with Sam, no matter what happens," she said fiercely, seizing possession of a 9mm semiautomatic handgun, the first gun she saw in the open bag on the floor.

Heather nodded and grabbed Sam's limp hand in her own, not understanding what crazy scheme this seemingly reckless duo had come up with now.

Dean gave Kya's hand one last squeeze before both of them bolted out from behind the couch to intercept the Manticore's approach. Kya stepped out from behind Dean, bringing the gun to bear in front of her in a perfect shooting stance.

"Eat bullet," she commented.

She fired with abandon, each bullet hitting its armor hide and bouncing harmlessly off, but it got angry enough to open its maw in an angry roar that hurt her ears. Dean waited, flare gun ready to fire, arms extended and legs spread to take the shot. The one shot they had, the only one that mattered. As the jaws extended to their full range Dean tensed his own jaw muscles and fired the flare gun.

Kya held her breath as the flare soared through the air and shot straight into the Manticore's mouth. She gripped Dean's shoulder and outstretched her other hand toward the burning flare as the creature tried to spit it out. Before it could accomplish that feat Kya focused on the end that crackled with fire, causing it to grow like a firestorm inside the Manticore's mouth. With just that one spark and the force of her mental will pushing it along the flare exploded and Kya pushed the explosion farther, forcing the flames down the creature's throat and into its body.

The outside may have been invincible but the inside most definitely was not.

The Manticore screamed through its blocked mouth as the fire and the explosion from the flare gun devoured it from the inside out until it finally exploded. Chunks of its body flew through the air, raining down around them along with a shower of bone and blood, while the spiked tail was thrown clear across the room to hit the stained glass window with unerring accuracy.

None of them had noticed that the window was covered in arcane ruins, much like those on the door. None of them had noticed the small depictions of people running around its edges, people that the house had claimed and added to its power source for more fuel. Dean pulled Kya to the ground in a crouch, covering her body with as much of his own as he could while both of them tried to cover their heads with their arms as the enormous window shattered from the impact.

Glass flew outward, some of it managing to find its way back into the room to fall down around them. As the window shattered a stream of black smoke took its place, swirling into the air until a maelstrom of wind encased the room with enough force to pick up the glass shards, wooden splinters and chunks of destroyed Manticore and send them spiraling around the room in a tornado of death. Kya was numb from the dozens of cuts that assaulted her body from the flying debris, but she was even more thrown by the beam of light that suddenly cut through the sky outside the window to attack the black cloud.

It was as if the sun itself had gotten sick and tired of all of it and reached an arm down to beat the holy crap out of darkness. The dark cloud was smothered in the beam of light and the tunnel of light receded to leave behind a gaping hole of shimmering yellow light where the stained glass window used to be. All around them the light spread, crackling across the floor and walls, furniture and ceiling like so many fingers of electricity. The house began to shake as though caught in the middle of a California earthquake that would have made it the next Atlantis. The walls, floors, ceiling and everything in between shook violently, jolting them around and sending them sprawling across the floor as the house began to shake itself apart from the foundation up. The light spread past the attic, rushing forward to devour the entire house in its relentless grip while their own little corner of the world fell down around them quite literally. Dean ducked a falling beam from the ceiling and rushed behind the couch to force Heather to her feet and grab hold of his brother, who was just now coming out of his paralyzed status. Sam grabbed Dean's hand in a weak grip and Dean pulled him up, throwing Sam over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, not caring how much it hurt Sam's pride to be carried out.

Heather fell to her knees when the house continued its relentless shaking; ripping itself apart with such violence that she thought the end of the world was at hand. She was shocked when Kya shoved her out of the way, rolling the girl across the floor as glass embedded itself in their bodies along the way. That was better than the alternative as another beam of wood crashed down from the ceiling in the spot where Heather had been kneeling. She would have been crushed.

There was no time for a thank you as Kya wrapped an arm around the younger girl and together they half limped, half carried each other toward where Dean was struggling to stand his ground.

"I never thought I'd say this," he yelled, "But go into the light!"

"What the hell is this?" Kya demanded, pulling Heather toward the rectangular window of light. "Poltergeist?"

"Smartass comments later, going now," Dean commanded, shoving Kya forward.

"Oh shit," both girls mumbled.

Kya kept her arm around Heather as they dove through the box of blinding light just as the attic completely fell in on itself.


	20. Chapter 30

Dean groaned slightly and came to realize that he was on his back. One part of his body was warmer than the other part and he could feel every muscle in his body yelling at him not to move. He groaned again and raised a stiff arm to his head, shielding his eyes as he cracked them open. The blinds had let a beam of sunlight into the room, the cause of one half of his body's abnormal temperature.

He rolled over and glanced around, relief spreading through him when he realized that he was on the blue carpeted floor of the motel room. As he stood up he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and had the overwhelming urge to lie back down and pretend he had never gotten up.

He was covered from head to toe in blood, courtesy of his swim in the blood lake, and his hair was a mess. His face was tinged red with even darker spots underneath the coat of grime, blood, and dried sweat, where several of the cuts and scratches he had sustained had dried up and begun to scab over. He could see dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep and when he stripped off his over-shirt he found bruises running up and down the length of his arms and shoulders. He sighed deeply. He felt like he had been run over by a truck and his entire body protested against any kind of movement at all.

It took a moment for his head to clear and he wondered how long he had been out. Across the floor from where he had landed was Sam, looking no better off than he was. His brother was cut and bruised as well and the bottom half of his pants looked like he had decided to tie dye them in blood. Sam was sprawled on his back still unconscious and Dean went to his little brother, shaking his shoulder roughly to rouse him.

"Sam!" he called.

Sam groaned in protest to his brother and slowly opened one eye. "I'm gonna kill you."

Dean laughed. "Wake up sunshine."

Sam sat up slowly, with Dean's help and looked around. The same relief that Dean had felt washed over his face as he recognized the familiar surroundings. "Thank God," he said. "How long have we been out?"

"I have no idea, dude," Dean replied.

"Where are the girls?"

Dean looked around, spotting a strand of blonde hair on the side of the bed across the room. He climbed to his feet and jogged over to the spot, finding Kya face down against the carpet. Her pale skin was tinged with bruises where he could see them and her clothes were shredded from one too many battles. Blood stains covered the length of her garments, both from wading through the blood lake and from having him in her arms after he had come back to life from it, where the blood from his clothing had soaked through hers. He knelt down next to her and gently took her shoulders, rolling her over with care and gathering the beat up girl into his arms. Sam came over and looked down at the damage.

"How come you're nice to her?" he grumbled, indicating how gentle Dean had been.

"Cuz she's cuter than you," Dean shot back.

Sam nodded. "I don't see Heather anywhere."

"Maybe she's in her room," Dean said.

"What?"

"Well, we were brought back to where we were taken. Maybe she was too."

Sam shook his head. "That's too big a maybe."

Dean shrugged. "Well, she was with Kya when we got out so if she isn't here, she has to be wherever the book first took her from in the first place. It's the only explanation I have."

Sam turned to find the book laying face down on the carpet with its pages fanned out against the floor. He picked it up slowly and snapped it shut before turning it over in his hands. Even though he knew the house had been destroyed and the curse was most likely lifted he had trouble opening it again. He watched Dean lift Kya into his arms and set her on the bed before his brother joined him.

Dean shook his head when Sam offered him the book. "I am never reading again," he commented.

Sam looked at him. "You read?"

"Shut up, Sammy."

Both boys turned at the sound of a collar and found Buck had climbed onto the bed next to Kya and was now curled up in a massive ball beside the girl, his head resting on her stomach. He whined pitifully and gave them plaintive eyes, as if to say "why'd you let this happen?". Dean sighed and turned back to Sam.

"First thing," he said, tapping the cover of the book, "Bonfire."

Sam shook his head. "I don't know, Dean. I think the book is safe now."

Dean crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. "Oh really? Well then open it."

Sam shrugged and took a deep breath before jerking the cover open and reading the first line. He waited but nothing happened. He stood with the book in his hand and read the first paragraph, and still nothing happened. He looked back up at Dean triumphantly.

"Told you so," he said.

"Sam, that is so first grade," Dean tossed back, heading for the shower.

Sam gave his brother a dirty look before sitting on the edge of the bed and reading more of the book that had nearly claimed all of their lives. He heard the shower running and shook his head. When they had all gotten cleaned up and rested a bit he knew they had more work to do. There was still another ghost to deal with, and somehow they had to bring Hunter Banks to justice for his actions. How they were going to accomplish that was beyond his exhausted mind at the moment. He looked back at the bathroom door and sighed again, throwing himself to a laying position on the bed and continued reading.

Kya groaned and rolled over to find a soft and furry mass against her side. She almost freaked out until she realized it was Buck, her newly adopted and fiercely loyal dog. She realized that the she was back in the motel room as she rolled over stiffly to wrap her arms around the great black dog. Buck nuzzled her neck, as if aware that she was injured and not wanting to disturb those injuries. She looked up as Sam spoke to her, not registering his words at first.

"How are you feeling?" he asked again.

"I've had better days," she groaned.

She laid her head on the dog's back, wanting nothing more than to crash again and not wake up for the next week. She finally raised her head as Dean stepped from the bathroom, wearing clean jeans and the white towel wrapped across his shoulders. She looked around the room.

"Where's Heather?"

"Dean has this theory that she's in her bedroom getting ready for a date," Sam grumbled.

"I never said date," Dean replied. "I said it was likely that she was put back where she was taken from."

Kya nodded slowly. "It makes sense. And you better pray that you saved some hot water."

Dean motioned for the bathroom. "By all means go and find out."

Kya got up from the bed and the dog padded faithfully behind her, as though Buck feared if she left his sight again she would disappear. She grabbed up her duffel bag and let the dog into the bathroom with her before shutting the door.

"Lucky dog," Dean muttered.

Sam laughed. "So after we use up all the hot water in the motel, what are we doing?"

"Sleeping for the next three days straight?" Dean wondered.

"I don't think that's sleeping, Dean. I think being out for three days is more like a coma. So you want to take a coma?"

"Sounds good right about now. But then again, so does food."

Sam looked up from the book. "Then go get some. And try not to eat it all on the way back."

Dean pulled a navy blue shirt on over his head and slipped on another pair of worn out hunting boots. He smiled at his brother as he snatched the keys to the Impala off the dresser.

"I promise to save you a French fry."

"Two," Sam said, without looking up.

"One and a half," Dean countered, heading for the door.

"Done," Sam commented.

Dean laughed and shut the door behind him.


	21. Chapter 31

**31**

Sam stepped up and rapped on the two story white and blue Victorian style home they had located in a middle-upper class part of suburbia. He was apprehensive as they stood there impatiently waiting for someone to answer the door. Just as Sam was about to knock again the door swung open and Heather stood there.

The girl was showered and dressed in fresh clothes, a stylish denim skirt, flip flops, and a turquoise tank top with a denim jacket over it that only came down to her ribs. She smiled when she saw who was on her doorstep and launched herself into Sam's arms in a friendly hug, turning to Kya and Dean next.

Heather stepped out and shut the door behind her.

"You guys are alive," she said.

"So are you," Dean commented.

She smiled. "Yeah, but I think I'm going to fail my math test. I'm too scared to even open my Algebra book."

Kya laughed. "Well, unless you're worried about killer fractions I doubt that's an issue."

Dean gave the blonde an incredulous look. "Did you ever take Algebra? Some of those equations are worse than a ballroom full of blood!"

Kya shook her head and turned back to the girl. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I never want to see another book in my life, even if it's Dr. Seuss."

Sam nodded. "It will pass. Just get back to your normal life and be more careful about urban legends."

"Yeah," Dean grumbled. "If people actually listened to the moral in those we wouldn't have a job."

Heather laughed softly. "Well I promise to take notes on every horror movie I ever see for the rest of my life. This won't happen again."

Dean nodded. "Well if it does call--,"

Kya smacked him in the back of the head. "If you say 'ghostbusters' I swear you'll be making the term 'stop, drop, and roll' have new meaning."

"Okay, fine," he conceded. "Call Sam's cellphone."

Sam jotted it down on a piece of paper from his wallet and handed it to the girl. She smiled shyly and stuck it in her backpocket.

"So what are you guys gonna do now?" she asked.

"Finish all of this insanity," Kya said.

Heather nodded. She stepped forward to give them all another hug.

"You guys saved my life," she said softly. "Thanks."

"It was no problem," Sam said gently.

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "All in a day's work."

Heather elbowed him in the ribs.

"We have to go now, Heather. We'll see you around, maybe."

Heather nodded, stepping back into the house and shutting the door softly, probably going back upstairs to face down her newly found fear of unopened text books. Kya turned to the boys when they had reached their respective modes of transportation.

"So now what?" she asked.

"Like my less than verbally inclined brother said," Sam told her. "We go finish this."

"I'm not really sure this was the best idea in the world," Kya said quietly as she followed Sam through a row of headstones.

Sam shined the flashlight down into the rows, searching through them for the unmarked grave even though he knew it would be almost impossible to find, even considering that the cemetery was rather small. Kya had told him that Hunter had said Jason Banks had been thrown into an unmarked grave after his death in this cemetery and while most of the graves were marked with headstones it was possible that he never even got a brick to mark his resting place.

"Probably not," Sam agreed.

"I hope he's okay," she went on, stepping around a grave.

Sam nodded his head in agreement. "I'm sure he is. Dean can take care of himself and as soon as we're done with this we'll go make sure."

Kya wiped sweaty hands on her dark brown corduroys. She had changed into the pants, a beige tank top and a tan suede jacket with dark brown boots after her shower, pulling her curly locks into a ponytail at the nape of her neck and even now a few curls pulled themselves loose to frame her face. She swiped at them as she followed Sam through the cool night air.

They had split up. Dean had gone after Hunter to get answers for his actions and to tell him that his scheme was over. The book had no power now and revenge was not going to happen. Dean had the crazy hope that Hunter would slip up, give himself away, and allow them to bring the police in to arrest him. He was a human being after all, no matter how twisted he was, and they couldn't just kill him in cold blood.

While Dean was off trying to set Hunter up to get arrested she and Sam had gone to the cemetery in search of Jason Banks' grave so they could put an end to his miserable existence as well. They both knew they had drawn the short end of the straw; dealing with a ghost was far more dangerous than dealing with a deranged human being.

Beside her Buck padded silently across the ground, a large black shadow among all the other shadows in the cemetery. She reached a hand down as she walked, her hand touching the top of his head that rose up at her hip. She was getting fondly attached to the dog and knew that when she left here after all of this was over, Buck would be going with her. She had always wanted a dog and it seemed like Buck had chosen her as his owner, from the first encounter on the porch of Hunter's house he had stayed with her. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to Buck than the average person would think, almost a mystical quality in his soulful brown eyes and a sharp intelligence to match.

"I don't know how we're going to find his grave," Kya said in frustration.

"Maybe we could just ask him nicely to show us where it is," Sam suggested.

Kya laughed. "Oh yeah, I'm sure that would go over well. 'Hi, can you show us where you're buried so we can send you straight to Hell?'"

Sam shrugged and smiled. "You never know."

Kya looked down as Buck shoved his massive head against her thigh, almost as if he were trying to push her in a particular direction.

"What is it, Buck?" she asked patiently.

The dog pushed her again, this time harder, and she went with the direction as she grabbed Sam's hand and pulled him with her. Sam looked down at the oversized and overmuscled Labrador as he led them across the ground, at first walking slowly and then breaking into a heavy trot as they jogged to keep up.

"What the hell is your dog doing? Leading us to a long lost Frisbee?" Sam demanded.

Kya was shocked when Buck turned his head as he was running across the ground, looking directly at Sam and baring his teeth in a gruff growl as if he knew exactly what Sam had said and was replying.

"I don't know," Kya said, after the shock had worn off. "I guess we'll find out."

She stopped short as Buck did on a bare patch of ground underneath a large oak tree, the branches overhead casting long shadows on the ground from the light of the moon shining overhead. Buck pawed at the ground under the tree, whining and barking alternately as Sam stepped up with a shovel in his hand and raised an eyebrow at the dog.

"I had better not dig six feet underground to find a golf ball," he told the dog.

Buck growled.


	22. Chapter 32

**32**

Dean pulled the Impala up the driveway as he saw a young man step out of the front door and onto the porch, apparently forewarned of Dean's arrival by the rumbling growl of the car's engine. Dean cut the car off, sliding the keys into the pocket of his jeans and a 9mm into the waistband of his jeans before tucking the back of his brown leather jacket over the gun. He got out of the car and walked up toward the house as Hunter came down off the porch with his arms crossed tightly against his chest and a frown on his face.

Dean wanted to hit him without a single word spoken, both for attacking Kya earlier and for all the shit he had gone through in that damn book, but he figured assault without provocation was probably a bad thing.

"Who the hell are you?" Hunter demanded.

"Dean Winchester," Dean said, not bothering to offer his hand in greeting. "I'm a friend of Kya's."

"What do you want?" Hunter asked, his eyes narrowed.

"Well, I came to tell you your game is up. The book is a pile of charred paper and nobody else is going to die for your vengeance vendetta."

"You burned my father's book?" Hunter yelled. "Wait, how the hell did you get out of it?"

"I'm just that talented," Dean countered, easing back a few steps in case Hunter wanted to go at it.

Hunter looked around, his fists clenching at his sides. "Where's your little blonde friend?"

"Probably toasting your Uncle's bones right about now," Dean replied. "Extra charred."

"You bastard," Hunter said in a low voice. "This won't stop me. This town is going to pay for what they did to my family!"

"And you're delusional," Dean told him. "Ever think about a straitjacket?"

Hunter swung at him and Dean ducked the punch, coming back up with one of his own aimed right for Hunter's gut. Hunter hit the ground on his back, clutching at his stomach while he glared up at Dean.

"My father was murdered by those idiots," he growled. "They deserve to die."

"I don't think that decision is yours to make," Dean shot back. "It sucks what happened, but you've got to get over this vengeance trip man. All that blood is on your hands and now you want to go and add more?"

"Gallons of it," Hunter snarled. "And I didn't kill anybody so what the hell are you gonna do about it? That book did all the work for me and the police won't believe your crazy ass story about a killer book and ghosts."

"No," Dean said. "They won't. But you were the one who stole it and that's pretty illegal. And I'm sure I can come up with something else inventive enough to get you thrown into your very own cement cell."

"I don't think so," Hunter told him, climbing back to his feet.

Dean smirked. "Well then you shouldn't think."

Dean blocked another punch that Hunter threw at him and pushed him back. Hunter stumbled but came forward again, tackling Dean to the ground. Dean went down onto his back and grunted as the gun dug into his lower back. He was glad he had put the safety on it or else he might be missing a part of his ass.

Dean's head snapped sharply to the side as Hunter's fist collided with his jaw and he reached up his own fist in retaliation, hitting the delusional maniac in the temple. The blow was glancing and didn't do much damage since Hunter moved his head and Dean's vision was slightly blurred from the hit to his own face.

"You fucking bastard," Hunter snarled, hitting Dean again. "I'm going to bring this town to its knees, starting with you."

"Whatever you say," Dean grumbled, shoving the heel of his hand into Hunter's jaw hard enough to snap his head back.

With the distraction Dean kicked Hunter off of him and brought the heel of his boot down into the man's gut before climbing back to his feet. He withdrew the gun from his waistband and clicked the safety off, leveling it at Hunter.

"That's enough of Fight Club," Dean said coldly. "I wouldn't move if I were you."

"What are you gonna do?" Hunter spat with a laugh. "Shoot me? Murder me?"

"I'm thinking about it," Dean told him honestly.

Hunter shook his head. "You aren't going to do shit."

Dean checked his watch. It had been at least an hour since they had all split up. Sam and Kya should be just about finished with their part of the deal and Dean was supposed to call and check in with them. He was five minutes late checking in.

He stopped thinking as Hunter's eyes shifted behind him for a half a second before returning to Dean. Dean felt the presence of somebody behind him but as soon as he turned he felt the pin prick of something sharp sinking into his neck.

Dean grunted as his fingers dropped the gun and he grabbed at the small object embedded deeply into the skin of his neck. He stumbled, dropping to his knees as the world tilted violently around him and his vision began to dim at the edges. He fell over completely, a blurry shape outlined above him just before his world went dark.


	23. Chapter 33

**33**

"Well I'll be damned," Sam said shaking his head and wiping away the sweat from his brow. The motion left behind a smear of dirt on his forehead that Kya had to stop herself from laughing at.

Sam tossed the shovel out of the hole that he had dug over the last twenty minutes and climbed out of the grave with Kya's help. He brushed his hands off on his jeans and looked down into the six foot hole in the ground at the dirty bones of a man that had been haphazardly tossed there.

Sam looked over to the dog, who would have had a triumphant smile on his face if dogs could smile. Kya bent down and encased Buck's neck in a hug.

"Good boy, Buck!" she exclaimed. "You're the best."

Sam nodded. "Well, Buck found the body but we still have to give the bones a good old fashioned charring."

Sam knelt down to remove a can of gasoline from his backpack just as Buck braced himself on all fours, hackles raised and lips peeled back to reveal pointed canines that were bared in a snarl. Kya followed the dog's gaze and jumped back. The same ghost that had attacked her before was standing only ten feet away now, face a mask of anger at the intrusion on his resting place. Buck stepped forward and stood in front of Kya, bristling in anger at the supernatural being that dared to threaten harm to his master.

Jason Banks materialized, becoming corporeal and more deadly because now he could kill. In his right hand he held a butcher's knife and his body was a mess of blood and broken bones that didn't seem to hamper his movement in the least. He rushed forward, pushing past Buck and aiming straight for Sam.

"Sam!" Kya screamed, launching herself toward the ghost.

She pushed the ghost back and ducked as the blade came her way, shoving out with both of her hands and causing Jason to stumble back further. Jason swiped with the blade again, cutting into Kya's shoulder. She cried out and stumbled back as Jason came forward again, grabbing her throat with one hand and holding out the knife to plunge it into her gut with the other.

Kya was startled as a vicious snarl erupted from beside them and a black missile flew off the ground, slamming into Jason Banks. Buck latched onto the ghost's arm that was holding the knife and took the ghost down with him, rolling until the dog came out on top with his jaws clamped around Jason's arm. Buck shook his head, digging in with his teeth while he snarled through his muffled mouth.

Kya got to her feet as Sam finished pouring the gasoline on the bones. The ghost pushed Buck off, swinging the blade at the dog. He charged at Kya again but Sam stepped in front of her, shoving the ghost back as Kya turned to the pile of gasoline soaked bones in the grave. She brought a hand out and flipped open her newly refueled Zippo directing the flame into her hand and shooting it toward the bones in a fireball.

The gasoline ignited and the bones caught fire, going up in a blaze inside the hole. Sam pushed Kya back as the ghost stumbled around for a few minutes before his body caught on fire as well, holes appearing in the flesh and burning outward as he was consumed by fire. Sam shielded Kya's body with his own, pushing her over and covering her with his frame as the ghost imploded, sparks and dust flying into the air.

Sam came back up quickly as the last of it died down, Kya standing at his side with her hand gripping his arm. Buck walked back up to them and Kya grabbed the dog in another hug.

"You saved my life," she breathed into his fur. "That's it, I'm adopting you."

She laughed as Buck licked her cheek and turned back to Sam who was anxiously pulling his materials back into the bag and checking his watch.

"Dean hasn't checked in yet," he said hurriedly.

"You think something happened?" Kya asked with worry in her voice.

"I don't know," Sam told her. "He's not exactly the most punctual person on the planet, but he's twenty minutes late calling. That's not like him."

"Maybe he just got hung up," Kya said hopefully, although she didn't really believe that.

Sam shook his head as he took her hand and led her quickly from the cemetery. Buck trotted along next to them, silent as a panther in its natural habitat. When they reached her bike the dog shoved its nose into Kya's hand. She looked down as Buck shoved her again and turned around with one last look at her.

She watched as he took off in the direction of the house, a black blur in the shadows of the night and she thought for a second that he was running faster than a dog his size should have been able to.

"Where the hell is he going?" Sam demanded, staring at the dog's figure as it disappeared.

"To Dean," she replied, climbing onto her bike and waiting until Sam got on behind her. "The same place that we're going."


	24. Chapter 34

**34**

Dean awoke to the sound of dripping water and creaking floorboards. His head felt heavy when he tried to lift it and his wrists and ankles felt like they weren't there. He cracked open one eye and groaned when a single light bulb overhead invaded his vision. As he tried to move his limbs he found that he had been securely tied to a chair and the ropes were so tight they were cutting off his circulation. He tried to flex his hands but all that did was cause the rope to dig in painfully.

He looked up as a figure came into his line of sight and narrowed his eyes. It was a young woman, about the age of twenty five, small in frame with curly brown hair hanging down around her shoulders. She wore a plain white t-shirt under dark denim overalls and would have looked like nothing more than a sweet American farm-girl if it hadn't been for the sadistic gleam in her dark brown eyes.

"I got you good," she declared, smiling brightly.

Dean glared at her. "I've had better."

The girl frowned as Hunter came up behind her, wrapping strong arms around her waist. It was obvious these two were a couple, but how he had missed the presence of the girl was beyond him. He cursed himself for not paying closer attention. He really had to stop getting himself into these kinds of predicaments. The chair and ropes thing was getting old. He closed his eyes and silently prayed that a hot poker wouldn't come into the mix.

"I told you I wasn't going to let you stop me," Hunter said quietly. "It doesn't seem like you're going to be stopping much of anything from your position."

Dean shrugged. "Give me time."

Hunter laughed. "You're far from MacGuyver, Dean Winchester. I don't think a paperclip and a rubberband is going to get you out of this."

"You'd be surprised what I can do with a rubberband," Dean shot back.

The girl in front of Hunter smiled sweetly. "Oh, do tell."

Dean sighed in disgust. "So are you going to sit here and bore me to death with your plans for world domination or is there actually a point to all of this?"

Hunter stepped forward and backhanded him as hard as he could, causing Dean to see spots for several seconds and come back up with a bruised face and bloodied lip. He shrugged it off, trying valiantly not to let the psycho couple see any weakness.

"There is no point," Hunter said with a sick smile. "You're stuck here until this whole town is nothing more than a pile of dead bodies. You ruined the book so I'll have to come up with something else. But don't worry, I will."

"Glad to be the monkey wrench in your day," Dean shot back.

The girl turned her head at a sound coming from upstairs. Hunter followed her gaze and nodded shortly to her.

"Go check it out," he told her. "Holler if you need anything."

"Oh honey," she said cheerfully. "It's probably just more dolls for our collection. I've always wanted a pretty blonde one."

Dean's stomach twisted. This bitch must have been watching during Kya's first encounter with Hunter, probably from somewhere in the house. Kya and his brother didn't know about her, they would have no way to suspect that she had any part in this. He was about to open his mouth and try and yell a warning but Hunter beat him to it, shoving a white piece of cloth between his lips and forcing his head down roughly to secure it in the back.

"Uh-uh," Hunter scolded. "No warning the girlfriend."

Dean strained against his bonds but it got him nowhere. He glared at Hunter as the man patted the side of his face in a friendly manner, a taunt that there was nothing Dean could do about the current situation.

Buck shot across the lawn, a black missile with heat seeking capacity at a dead aim for its target. He could smell the older Winchester; his scent was all over the ground near where his car was still parked. The black behemoth hadn't been moved yet.

He could smell his former master, the evil twisted man who was bent on nothing but revenge. His scent was all over the place too and Buck could smell his blood on the grass. It would seem that Dean Winchester had put up a fight. If the dog could have smiled, he would have.

Buck padded around the side of the house, disappearing amongst the shadows as the screen door flew open and the scent of his old master's girlfriend filled his keen nose. Hiding in the shadows Buck growled lowly; he had never liked the woman. She sucked at sharing the love at the dinner table. He never got scraps from that bitch.

The sound of Kya's motorcycle still hadn't reached Buck's ears and the dog was slightly relieved. He didn't want the girl to get hurt; she was by far the nicest master he had paired himself with so far but it had been a long time since he could stand by the side of a hunter.

Buck listened carefully as the woman on the porch walked out onto the front lawn and when he was sure her back was turned he darted up the porch and through the open door, disappearing among the furniture.

Hunter looked to his girlfriend as she came back down the stairs looking slightly puzzled. Dean glared at her, desperately hoping that Kya and his brother did not show up. Although he wanted to be rescued, as demeaning as needing a rescue was, he didn't want them to end up with a bullet in the head.

"I checked the property," the woman told Hunter. "But I couldn't find anything."

Hunter furrowed his eyebrows. "Huh. Must have been a coyote. Don't worry about it, Chelsea. If the girl shows up she won't be much of a problem."

Dean almost grinned behind the gag. It would seem they didn't know about Sam and if they thought that Kya was that easy to get rid of they were sadly mistaken. Each side now had a secret weapon; his companions knew nothing of Chelsea and they knew nothing of Sam.

In complete disregard to his love interest, Hunter turned back to Dean with a sadistic smile on his face and a predatory gleam in his blue eyes.

"If your girlfriend shows up," he said slowly. "I'm sure I could think of a few things to do that wouldn't involve a chair."

Dean struggled against the ropes, his jaw tightening and the muscles in his neck straining with his anger. Hunter laughed at him even as his girlfriend pouted behind him, obviously not pleased with the idea that Hunter had plans to be with another woman, even if that other woman didn't necessarily want to be with him.

Chelsea slunk back up the stairs and Dean watched her go. As soon as she had disappeared he witnessed Buck make his way silently down the steps, eyes glowing faintly in the dim light in the basement. The dog vanished around the corner of the stairs before Hunter turned around and Dean was both relieved and worried at the same time.

If Buck was here, where were his brother and Kya?


	25. Chapters 35 and 36

**35**

Kya had the wits to stop the bike a mile from the house, where the sound of her rumbling engine wouldn't alert Hunter to their presence. She slid from the bike and rolled it into a stand of trees out of sight of the highway. Sam slid his helmet off from beside her and set it on the seat as she did the same.

"Do we have a plan?" she asked quietly.

Sam started trekking through the tree line, winding his way in the general direction of the house before he stopped, realizing he had no idea where it was.

"Not really," he told her. "We don't know enough to have a plan."

"Good point," Kya commented, taking the lead.

She pushed through branches and stepped over shrubbery, steadily making her way toward the house. There was no sign of Buck anywhere, and again she was forced to wonder what was up with her dog. He didn't act like any dog she had ever seen.

"So we're going to go in there with no plan," Kya said after awhile.

"That's about the gist of it," Sam replied.

She sighed as the edge of the woods came into view, and beyond that the house. She made her way to a large bush on the edge of the property and knelt down with Sam crouching next to her. Dean's car was still parked in the driveway but all seemed to be quiet. There was no sign of life anywhere and none of the lights in the house were on save for a single light shining dimly through a side facing window that Kya assumed must be the kitchen or a small bedroom. There was no sign of her dog anywhere.

"I don't like this," Kya told him.

"Me either," Sam responded. "But we've gotta find Dean."

"We've exhausted our weapons."

"Have you seen our trunk?"

She shook her head. "How the hell are we supposed to get into the trunk? Dean has the keys."

Sam waggled a finger at her with his eyebrows raised and slipped a small silver object from his back pocket with a mischievous grin on his face. "I had a spare made."

Kya laughed softly. "Well, we still have to get to the trunk and hope he isn't watching from the house."

Sam nodded. "Let's go. Dean needs us."

Together they ran across the lawn in a low crouch, stopping every now and then to drop to the ground and continue military style before finally reaching the trunk of the Impala with the addition of a few grass and dirt stains on their clothing.

"Dammit," Kya complained. "Now I'm gonna need another shower."

Sam laughed at her as he slid the key into the trunk lock and popped it quietly, easing it open while Kya kept a sharp eye on the house. More than likely Dean had been taken by surprise somehow and she wasn't going to let the same happen to them. While Sam had his head buried in the dark space of the trunk Kya checked her Zippo to make sure it was fueled enough and operational.

"I can't see a damn thing," Sam told her in frustration.

"Here," Kya replied easily. "Allow me."

She turned her back to the house and lit the Zippo, transferring the flame quickly to hover above one finger while she slipped that finger into the trunk to light the space within. She turned her gaze back to the house to make sure the light had gone unnoticed. There was still no movement.

"Thanks," Sam whispered.

He dug around for a moment before coming up with a sawed off shotgun and spare ammo for it as well as another semi-automatic 9mm handgun that he handed to Kya. He lifted a booted foot onto the car and slid a hunting knife into a sheath hidden in his boot. Not sure what to expect inside he slid another flare into his belt as well as a second 9mm into the waistband at the back of his pants.

"Well hello, Rambo," Kya commented.

Sam laughed as he slid the trunk shut with all the quietness he could get it to close with before turning back to Kya as she extinguished the flame from her finger and slid the Zippo back into its holster. She slid the gun into the waistband of her pants as Sam had done and turned back to the house. The quiet in the night was almost eerie; she couldn't even hear the usual sound of crickets merrily annoying the rest of the world.

"Let's do this," Sam told her.

He took her hand and led her in a quick run across the grass aiming for the side of the house. When he reached it he pulled her in next to him, up against the wooden boards that made up the structure of the building and leaning around the side of the house to make sure nobody had stepped onto the porch during their mad dash.

The porch was still empty but for some reason the swing on it creaked back and forth as if it had been recently vacated or was being pushed by the wind. He shivered in spite of himself. There was no wind.

Dean strained against the ropes holding him down but it was no use. All of his efforts only got him chafed and bleeding skin underneath the tight grip of fibers. His eyes drifted to the shadowed corner that Buck had disappeared into but could make out no sign of the dog. He had no idea what the Labrador was doing there or how it had even found him but he wasn't going to look a gift-dog in the mouth. If Buck had come to offer assistance then Dean was not too proud to take it.

He listened to the sound of Chelsea making her way back up the stairs as ordered, going back out to check the property. The man couldn't shake the feeling that something or someone was on his grounds and instead of doing the dirty work himself he had sent Chelsea up to investigate.

Dean's heart banged against his chest at the thought of his baby brother or Kya getting hurt because of him; he had to trust them. He had to trust that they knew what they were doing and would be okay.

Dean again searched the shadows for Buck.

**36**

Kya pressed in against Sam's side in the shadows at the corner of the house while he leaned around the wooden edge and peered onto the porch to make sure their mad dash had gone unnoticed. The house remained quiet, eerily so, and Sam ducked back around to report that. At his side Kya was looking up at the kitchen window and fast coming to the conclusion that would not be a valid plan.

"I don't know how we're getting in there, short of straight through the front door," Kya told him.

Sam shook his head. "I've got nothing."

"Well," she said worriedly, "We've got to come up with something. We don't want to come up short on the rescue part. Dean needs us."

Sam pressed his lips into a tight line and his eyes took on a hard look; for all the times his older brother had saved him he couldn't let him down now. Not when it was Dean who needed him this time around. Like Dean, Sam would do whatever it took to keep his family together. But all of his resolve still had him coming up empty on a plan.

They couldn't just charge in; if Hunter heard them he might put a bullet in Dean's head before they could reach him. And sneaking in wouldn't do a whole lot of good either since they had no idea if Hunter was alone in the house or even if there were more animals to worry about that might send up an alarm. There wasn't even a way to be sure that Hunter was in residence at the moment. He might have left Dean long enough to go looking for his other problem, the girl standing at Sam's side.

"I think I've got something," Kya told him finally.

"What?" Sam asked, turning to look down at the girl.

"Time to throw a rock at the hornet's nest," she told him cryptically. "Wait here."

Sam tried to protest but Kya was already off, racing back the way they had come. He peered around the corner as the girl emerged from behind the car, walking in a straight line toward the house. She held up one hand and a spark of flame shot from the grass, quickly catching fire with her will. She waved the hand in the air and the flames shot higher, racing across the rain-thirsty grass to ignite into a wall. Sam watched the wall grow higher and heard the porch door swing open and feet hit the wooden boards.

"What the hell?" a woman's voice said.

Sam watched a brunette woman step off the porch holding a shotgun and turn back into the house to yell Hunter's name. There was still no sign of Kya behind the wall of dancing flames, but the fire wasn't spreading any farther than the four foot thick wall it had started out as. Sam waited with baited breath until he saw a man emerge behind the woman with anger stamped across his face.

The couple came down off the porch and across the lawn while Sam watched. He turned his attention back to the wall of flames just as a shadowed figure emerged through them, walking straight through the flames. Kya walked through the fire and stepped out the front of the wall with the flames roaring at her back without a single char mark to show for it. Smoke danced in the air behind her, wrapping itself around her body and shrouding her like some mythic goddess of fire.

Sam couldn't stop the faint smile that spread across his face before he realized that Kya had meant to draw out anybody who was in the house. She was using herself to buy him time. Cursing because he didn't want to leave her alone with two psychos but having to trust that she knew what she was doing, Sam darted from the shadows and jumped the railing to land lightly on his feet on the porch. Without hesitation he darted through the open door and found himself in a living room.

The room was dark but the fire blazing outside gave him some light. The furniture was black leather and it seemed the décor had all been done in old Western style with a few Indian items spread throughout it. He saw no sign of his brother in the living room so Sam leveled the shotgun in front of him and moved to the next room, the adjoining kitchen. There was no lights coming from the hallway that led off the living room and he didn't think his brother was stashed in a bedroom. If he was wrong he would double back and check the rooms. The kitchen was dark as well and now all sound from outside had faded from his ears.

A door next to the refrigerator hung open and Sam saw a set of stairs leading down toward a single light at the bottom. Hope and terror gripped his heart simultaneously as he made his way down the steps, cringing as a shot split the air outside. Sam had to stop himself from barreling back up the way he had come to check on Kya. He had to trust her.

Sam took the stairs two at a time and slowed when he reached the bottom step, eyes searching the room. All he saw was his brother tied to a chair and looking at him with a mixture of relief and fear. The gag in his mouth prevented Dean from saying anything as Sam hurriedly made his way over to his brother.

Sam pulled the gag from Dean's mouth and took out the hunting knife, slicing through the bonds holding one wrist.

"You crazy sonofabitch," Dean told him. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Saving your ass," Sam told him through gritted teeth.

"Where's Kya?"

"Outside, drawing attention."

"You left her alone, with those two psych ward candidates?" Dean demanded.

"Didn't have much choice," Sam grated.

Sam stopped as Dean's attention was drawn away from him and toward a shape hurtling from the bottom of the step. Sam turned just as Hunter barreled into him, knocking the knife from his hand. Sam heard it clatter to the floor and then he hit the wall with Hunter on top of him.

In the chair, Dean worked frantically at the bonds on his other wrist with his now free right hand. His heart trip hammered as Hunter stood up and took aim at Sam's head with the shotgun he had wrenched away from the youngest Winchester.


	26. Chapters 37 and 38

**37**

Kya felt the fire blazing at her back, not really so much the heat as the comfort and control that it gave her. She pulled her eyes away from the sight of Sam jumping the porch railing and disappearing inside, returning her steady gaze to the dangerous duo in front of her.

"I'm glad you came back," Hunter told her in a tone that could only be described as sadistic.

"You won't be for long," Kya shot back, directing the fire farther out around her small form.

"What are you gonna do, burn me at the stake?" he demanded with a laugh.

"Thinkin about it," she told him seriously. "Where's Dean?"

"Safe and sound," he told her.

She bit her lower lip and nodded before shooting a hand out. The fire behind her shot out a length of dancing flame that wrapped around her outstretched arm, twirling and coiling before gathering in her palm and exploding toward Hunter in a devastating fireball. He dove out of the way, pushing the woman out the other way.

As the woman came back up Kya came forward without a word, eyes burning with anger and jaw set in stone. She snapped her right leg out in a gracefully arcing kick that hit the woman in the side of the head and brought her right leg down, turning to pivot on it as soon as it hit the ground and shooting out her left leg in a back kick that hit Hunter in the chest as he tried to sneak up behind her. She completed the turn, coming around to face him and snapping a hand out as he came back up, hitting him twice in the chest and once in the throat with the edge of her hand in a chop. She put both her arms out to the sides for balance, palms facing the ground and elbows slightly bent and whirled, bringing her right leg around again in a fluid circle, slamming her outstretched foot into the woman's shoulder as she tried to come from behind in an attack.

As Kya completed the maneuver she spun again to face Hunter this time. Her right leg was bent slightly at the knee, pushed back behind her and her left leg was in the lead pushed straight out with the knee locked so that her body was slightly tilted back. She brought her right arm up to cross over her chest, the palm open and flat as her fingertips hovered inches from her chin and her left arm bent at the elbow, pointed down over her torso at the ground with the palm of that hand also opened and fingers pushed tightly together. She held the defensive posture, keeping on ear behind her for any further attacks by the woman.

"You can't beat me," she told Hunter seriously.

"Can you outrun a bullet?"

She half smiled at him, lowering her head to stare up at him through narrowed eyes and a curtain of curls. "I'm Supergirl."

Hunter's laugh was cut short as she lunged. She ran straight for him and jumped at the last minute, her right foot connecting with his lower stomach. She used her momentum to propel her upward, as if he were a wall, and her left foot slammed into his chest. She pushed out with the blow and arced her body back down in a perfect aerial display that set her lightly back down on her feet in front of him. Her left hand shot out and backhanded him while her right came in low to hit his gut as he stumbled back.

He fell to the ground and she resumed her defensive stance with a small smile and a raised eyebrow. He rolled back to his feet with an audible groan.

"Chelsea," he spat. "Take care of this."

He ran back toward the house, leaving the brunette woman named Chelsea to spit a string of curses at him before getting back to her feet. Kya turned to face her, mentally putting out the fire before somebody from the highway noticed it and called the cops prematurely. The two women circled each other warily while Chelsea repeatedly glanced at her shotgun that had been thrown to the ground during Kya's first assault.

"You're not getting to that with all of your fingers intact," Kya promised her.

"I'm gonna blow a hole so big through you they won't be able to stitch you back together for your funeral," Chelsea hissed.

Kya shrugged and lunged at the woman, the time for wordplay done. Chelsea managed to dodge her first attack and come back quicker than expected, aiming a punch right for Kya's face. Kya reacted with only inches separating them, leaning forward to grab the woman around the waist. She pushed her torso straight out, keeping a tight grip on the woman, and bent her right leg straight up behind her in an incredible display of flexibility. Her right leg bent at the knee as it arced over her lowered head, slamming into the woman's forehead before Kya brought it back down and jumped away. As soon as she had cleared some distance she shoved her left leg out to kick the woman in the stomach. As soon as the left leg hit the ground again she switched legs, kicking Chelsea with the right instead as she stumbled back. The blow made her stumble further and Kya came forward again with the right leg no sooner than she had touched it to the grass. Chelsea stumbled back several more feet and Kya finished the four combo kick assault as soon as she had completed the third kick. As soon as her right foot touched the ground again from the last kick she spun on it, pivoting her body around in a circle as she brought her left leg up and kicked Chelsea in the stomach full force with a back kick. She stood over Chelsea when the woman hit the ground gasping for oxygen.

"I wouldn't get up if I were you."

**38**

Sam held his breath and tried to move away from the looming barrel of the shotgun but his head still spun from the blow to the wall. He saw Dean free his other hand but his feet were still firmly secured to the chair and his brother would have no chance of making it in time to spare Sam a bullet to the head.

Just as Hunter put his finger on the trigger a black tornado hurtled from the shadows. Buck took Hunter down with him, teeth gripping the man's arm and shaking violently, causing him to drop the gun. The Labrador stood on top of the man's chest, eyes flashing in the dim light of the room, emitting a series of vicious snarls and growls.

Hunter screamed in pain as Buck's teeth tore through his flesh and Sam found his feet just as Dean undid the last of his bonds. Sam snatched up his shotgun and leveled it at the man on the floor.

"Thanks, Buck," Sam told the dog.

Buck released Hunter's arm and stepped away to stand at Sam's side, nearly reaching the man's thigh in his height. The fur on his midnight black coat bristled slightly and his mouth remained curled in a snarl.

Dean stepped up beside his brother and looked down at the blue eyed man on the ground still holding his savaged arm and whining in pain.

"Get up," Sam ordered.

"You sonofabitch," Hunter growled at the dog. "I'm gonna kill you and use your fur as a carpet!"

Buck almost lunged again but held himself in check, as if he knew exactly what Hunter was saying to him and didn't like the suggestion for his coat one bit. Sam shoved the barrel of the gun closer to Hunter.

"I said, get up," Sam said again, this time in a tone that brooked no argument.

Warily looking at the trio in front of him Hunter climbed to his feet. As soon as he got his feet under him Dean came forward and hit the man in the jaw with a right hook and all the strength he could put behind it. Sam stared at his brother in shock as Dean shook out his hands and allowed a grin to split his face.

"Damn that felt good," Dean commented as Hunter rolled on the ground.

They turned at the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs in time to see Kya shoving Chelsea ahead of her. She had the woman tight in her grip with one of her arms wrenched behind her back and the other on her shoulder, propelling her forward. Kya shoved Chelsea to the ground with Hunter and grabbed Dean into a tight hug.

"I'm glad to see you're still in one piece," she told him.

"Yeah because pieces wouldn't be as sexy," he replied.

She playfully punched his shoulder as Sam held the gun steady on the duo on the floor. Kya released Dean and cast a thoughtful glance at the dog next to Sam before returning her full attention to Hunter and Chelsea.

"So tell me," she said slowly. "You were hoping to accomplish what, exactly, by all of this?"

"This whole town deserves to drown in its own blood," Hunter screeched from the floor. "And if you three hadn't of meddled then I would have made sure that it happened!"

"By stealing the book from the museum, kidnapping our friend, assaulting me not only earlier but today as well, and planning mass murder?" Kya clarified.

"Damn right," Chelsea threw in. "I would have been more than happy to put a bullet between your friend's eyes."

"I'm sure you would have," Dean told her. "But that's not on my to-do list for today, sweetheart. I think I left it out somewhere between driving my car off a bridge and enrolling myself in band camp."

"So in other words, the two of you are completely psychotic?" Kya asked.

"You can't prove any of your accusations," Hunter growled. "The whole story is ludicrous."

"Yes," Kya agreed. "But kidnapping, assault, and theft isn't. And you did do all of those things, right? So where's the insanity in all of that?"

"There isn't any," Hunter told her. "I'll do it all again if it means this town will fall to its knees. There's no way you can stop me unless you intend to shoot us both."

Kya smiled and slipped a small hand held recorder from her back pocket. "I don't intend to shoot either of your sorry asses. I think this will be enough to put the both of you away for a long, long time. And if you ever get out to cause more trouble, I'll be back to put you right back where you belong."

Hunter cursed at her as Dean smiled and pulled out a cell phone to call the cops. Sam held the gun on them both as Kya tied them up and left them in the basement for the police to find, along with the recorder in plain sight with the entire confession on it.

The three of them and Buck quickly left the premises, jumping into Dean's car and leaving before the first sound of sirens could be heard approaching in the distance. Hardly a word was spoken on the trip back to the motel room and Kya told both the boys that she needed a moment alone after all of the activity. She watched them disappear into the motel room in exhaustion while she turned back to the faithful dog in front of her.

"Alright," she said slowly, kneeling down to his level and staring him in the eyes. "Something is up with you and I want to know what it is."

Buck looked at her with far more understanding in his brown eyes than a dog should have had and backed up a few steps. Kya reached out, grabbing hold of his collar and pulling him back to her.

"Now, Buck," she said in a firmer tone.

She had to stop herself from falling onto her butt as the dog seemed to give in to defeat and lowered his head. Buck's shoulders began to expand upward, mutating as they went and taking on a human form as the rest of his body shifted as well, rising up from the ground. As the body shifted it began to become incorporeal until she could see right through the shifting mass and to the other side of the parking lot. She held her breath as the transformation completed itself and she was found herself looking up at the ghost of a man.


	27. Chapter 39 THE END!

**39**

Kya was so stunned she didn't even think about standing to her full height. She remained in a crouch on the ground still trying to figure out how her dog had turned into the ghost of a man. The man in question was obviously Native American and in his early thirties. Long black hair was tied down his back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck and he was characterized by deep brown eyes, the same as Buck's. Those eyes were full of wisdom and compassion, as if the all the good qualities of mankind had been permanently embedded in their depths. He stood at about 5' 8" and looked like he weighed a little over 150 lbs of lean muscle. He was dressed in the traditional garments of Native Americans, a soft deerskin long sleeve shirt embroidered with turquoise patterns and matching pants. On his feet were moccasins that drifted slightly above the cement of the parking lot.

"What the . . .What the hell?" she asked, finally gathering some of her scattered wits.

The ghost smiled. "You begged for truth. I give you truth."

She managed to stand up and face the ghost. "Who are you?"

"You know me as Buck. That is who I am."

She shook her head. "No, I meant who are you as a man?"

"I am Native American, more specifically Navajo. My name in life was Anias Buckhunter. That is where I gathered the name Buck."

She stepped back, still trying to digest all of the information. "But you were a dog. I don't understand."

"I am many things. I am whatever I wish to be. My place is at the side of good, aiding in the fight against the evil forces that plague this domain."

"So you're saying you can change into anything?" she asked.

The ghost nodded. "I am apart of all things. So it was when I died. My grandfather's magic insured that even in death I would remain to help guide those who needed it. He made me live in the forms of animals when I passed."

"I'm confused," she offered.

"My grandfather was a Shaman, a man of great wisdom and magic. He knew about the evils in the world, evils other than what mankind inflicted upon itself. When the settlers came to take our lands and eventually slaughtered our people, my grandfather searched for a way to carry on his work against the forces of evil. He was too old to cast the magic upon himself so I volunteered to take his place. When I died in battle I was brought back in ghostly form, able to take the shape of the spirits of the animals that had for so long guided my people."

"But, a Labrador?" she questioned.

The ghost laughed. "Not the most mystical among the animals of our people, nor even an animal that our people respected and valued. But in this day and time I had to adapt and take the form of something that people would trust. I am usually at the side of a Hunter, like yourself, a player in the great game of the cosmos. However, I chose to remain at Hunter's side simply because somebody had to watch him and thwart his evils where they could be."

"So, now you've done that job, where will you go?" she asked.

The ghost looked at her intensely. "With you, of course. I was drawn to you when first you appeared and so I shall not leave. It is the way it was supposed to be."

Kya drew back, one eyebrow raised. "I'm not a Hunter. I was just . . .just in this for my cousin."

"You are," the ghost countered. "You have stepped through a doorway that you cannot turn back from. Your powers were meant for the greater good of the world and that is something you know in your heart. You cannot turn your back on the side that needs your allegiance."

She stopped, realizing that the ghost was right. Before she had only gotten involved when necessary, choosing to remain neutral most of the time in the battle that was constantly at played between good and evil. Now, however, after all that had happened she knew that would no longer be the case.

"So you've just up and decided that you're staying with me," she clarified, still trying to let the situation sink in.

Buck nodded. "In whatever form you wish, wherever you choose to go, I am connected to you now and neither one of us can change the course of fate."

She nodded slowly. "Okay, well, that's fine. No fate changing. But somebody's bound to notice a ghost floating in the parking lot sooner or later."

She watched as the ghost shifted back down, mutating again into the form of the black Labrador that she had found that day on the porch. It sank in that he had told her she could choose his form, but for now having the Lab at her side was more comforting than asking him to change into a guinea pig.

She raised one eyebrow at the intelligent dog. "You couldn't have done that trick when I was trying to get you off the property on a freakin motorcycle?"

She swore that Buck smiled at her. Sighing she lead the way back into the motel room where Dean was laying back against the headboard of the bed and flipping lazily through channels. Sam was hard at work on his laptop, furiously clicking away at the keys.

"What were you doing out there?" Dean asked.

"Finding out that my dog is a ghost," she told him.

Both boys looked up at her in shock and surprise. "What?"

She smiled and sat down on Sam's bed while Buck took his place at her feet. She reached a hand down and idly scratched the silken fur of his head. She quickly explained what had transpired outside while the Winchesters listened intently.

"Well," Sam said when she had finished. "I knew there was something weird about that dog."

Dean seemed to be mulling it over. "So, does he eat Kibbles?"

Kya stood next to her bike and tried not to pay attention to the falcon in the boughs of the tree overhead. It looked like she wasn't going to need a car after all; Buck could just follow her on high.

"You should have him turn into a crow," Dean told her. "Paint your face all black and white."

She laughed. "I don't think that look would work for me."

He shrugged. "You never know."

She watched Sam load up the last of the gear into the back of the Impala. She had already said her goodbyes to the youngest Winchester. She could tell by the look in Dean's eyes that he really didn't want her to go. But her road lay elsewhere, somewhere over the horizon, designated by the hand of fate that she couldn't see. And if fate decreed they would cross paths again.

She leaned forward and grabbed Dean's waist with one arm, the back of his neck with the other. Before he could speak again she pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him with the fire and passion that drove her life in all other areas. He gave in to the moment, wrapping her smaller frame in his arms and kissing her back with an equal amount of fire.

"I gotta go, Dean," she said, finally breaking the kiss.

He sighed and released her. "I know."

He turned as Sam pointedly got into the passenger side of the car. He turned back to Kya who was climbing on her bike while Buck anxiously ruffled his feathers in the tree overhead. She kicked the stand that held the bike upright and fit the helmet over her head. Dean stepped back as she started the bike.

"You think we'll see each other again?" he asked, speaking louder to be heard over the purr of her engine.

She turned to face him, eyes unreadable through the black plating on her helmet. He imagined that they were sparkling, lit from the depths by the heart of fire within.

"Count on it," she told him. "It's fate."

Dean climbed into the driver's side of the Impala after Kya had gone and sat for a moment, doing nothing but staring at the empty highway ahead.

"We could go after her," Sam offered.

Dean smiled, thinking back on all the times in different towns that he had offered Sam the same thing. He knew Kya had been right. They would cross paths again, eventually. He, Sam and his father were a family, to be sure. But the extended network of hunters like them all over the planet was another family, a family that stuck together and never left anybody out.

Dean shook his head and started the car.

"Nope," he told his brother.

Sam looked back to the road ahead. "You good?"

Dean though about it for a minute, thought about Kya, thought about the next job, the next thrill. He smiled as he pulled the Impala onto the highway. He left the small Texas town in his rearview mirror, the car sailing down the road, glistening in the afternoon sun. The road ahead was clear and he thought about what hand fate would bring him next. Faith. Fire. Passion. It drove him. It pushed him ever onward, lighting his way through the shadows that surrounded him. He nodded to himself, to his life, to his future. Sam looked at his brother and shook his head, returning his attention to his laptop. As the car disappeared over the horizon from view of the town Dean answered his brother's question by sliding on a pair of sunglasses and leaning back in the drivers seat with a smile on his face.

"Always."


End file.
